


Imperfections: John and Rodney

by Dasha (Dasha_mte)



Series: Imperfections [10]
Category: Quantem Leap, Stargate Atlantis, The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-20
Updated: 2006-08-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dasha_mte/pseuds/Dasha
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Series: Imperfections [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/6682
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	1. St Lewis

It wasn't that the guides before John had been impatient. About half of them--all of the ones Rodney had had to fire--had been patient enough, but they'd been patronizing about it, as though Rodney were some kind of damaged child. John wasn't impatient, but he wasn't sweetly, gently patient, either. He just didn't seem to be in a hurry. It was weird.

Also--John found Rodney funny. Not in the way the guides who had quit had found Rodney funny. Polite and solemn and humorless, they had laughed inwardly with a frustrated contempt that Rodney glimpsed now and then right before they quit. John laughed out loud at Rodney's sarcastic editorials. He smirked at Rodney's scathing criticism of an impractical building or a badly-designed bit of roadway. Rodney didn't mean it to be *funny*, it was all true, what he said, every word, and the incompetence and stupidity did, really did, piss him off. But when John laughed, Rodney laughed, too.

Right before she quit, Kate, the last guide Rodney had had before John, had explained very reasonably, "The trouble with guides is that they respect and value other people."

"Well, they have to, to be guides," Rodney had interrupted impatiently.

"They don't understand or like people who *don't*," she said gently. "Lots of sentinels aren't good with people. But usually they care; they go into law enforcement or search and rescue or medicine. Or they're friendly, upbeat people who keep quality control in ice cream. You're not just bad with people. You treat them like things. You really don't care. And guides...for us, for a lot of us, unrelenting contempt for humankind is kind of a deal-breaker."

She'd been honest and competent and Rodney had felt safe with her. He threw a tantrum when she quit and crossed the agency that sent her off his list.

Turnover wasted time and screwed up Rodney's work. Which was important and very lucrative. Worse, high guide turnover was something sentinels were supposed to avoid. Inconsistency was a health hazard, as though Rodney didn't have enough of those already.

He doubled the incentive he added to the firm's pay package to twenty thousand dollars. Chances were the next guide wouldn't be particularly competent, but it was clear that Rodney wouldn't be able to keep competent, and something was better than nothing.

He had to pick Sheppard up at the airport; there wasn't a guide for hire in St. Louis who hadn't worked for Rodney already. "We're leaving day after tomorrow for Tampa. You can stay in my guest room until then. You can find something else after we get back. The nicest long-term suites are about half a mile from here."

"So you prefer the guide not to live in?"

"I've never tried it." Actually, he couldn't imagine anything more convenient and reassuring than having his guide *right there* all the time, but everyone so far had gotten enough togetherness from sharing hotel suites when they were on the road.

John was quiet and tidy and his smell wasn't offensive. He spent the first evening reading Rodney's medical history. He didn't smell freaked out or scared when he finished, which Rodney suspected was a sign that he just wasn't very bright, but he set the file aside and said, "How fast? When things start to go sour, how quickly do things get critical?"

"Fast. About two minutes."

John nodded seriously. "What's the first sign?"

"The what-?" Rodney asked blankly.

"The first sign. How do you know it's starting?"

"I get chain hives. I turn colors. I stop breathing."

"They start as chain hives?"

Rodney frowned. "I guess. I think. Usually."

John considered him thoughtfully for a moment, then changed the topic to Rodney's diet and schedule. He was reassuringly thorough.

The next day Rodney took John with him to the office. For a while, he'd had guides who had some training in art or engineering who'd been involved in the work. At a pretty pathetic level, admittedly, but they'd been able to follow the projects and be sort of useful. Rodney had gone through those in the first year. For the two years following, they'd only been useful for getting coffee and sitting in the corner of Rodney's office. Kate had read psych journals. Aidan had read mysteries. Jonas had been writing a novel.

John spent most of the morning in the hallway just outside of Rodney's office looking at the models on display. He'd tried to spend it standing at Rodney's left shoulder, but Rodney had put a quick stop to that. "Don't hover. I won't zone, not on blueprints." So John had gone away. He had a very long attention span; every time Rodney glanced out the door, he was staring thoughtfully, walking in slow circles. At lunch time, when Rodney came to collect him, he was staring at an airport remodel from a job in the Midwest. "What do you think?" Rodney asked.

"It's...pretty," John said. "Yours?"

Rodney snorted. "I kept it from falling down, but I didn't decide what it would look like."

"Glad to hear it," John said, leaning down so that his face was hidden by the tiny model tram and whispering at the edge of Rodney's hearing, "That....looks really inefficient."

Rodney glanced around, made sure nobody was close, and whispered back, "An utter disaster. The traffic tie-ups are legendary. And the tram is a piece of crap."

John didn't smile, except for his eyes. "So how--?"

"Full partner," Rodney whispered in his ear. "And the roof leaks--don't look at me, I wasn't on materials--a complete nightmare."

One of the secretaries walked past, and John straightened and said, "Which of these are yours?"

"Hmmm. That one, that one, that one, and...that one."

John pointed at a post-modern school with unnecessarily long corridors, a swooping façade, and hardly any windows. "You're eclectic."

"Please. I don't decide what they look like. I just keep them from falling down. I'm a structural engineer, not some flaky architect."

John looked thoughtfully into his eyes. "Bitter much?"

Rodney spun on his heel and fled. "Hungry? Or not?"

The next day they flew to Florida. Rodney hated flying, but since he hated almost everything else, it was just another inconvenience he put up with. The wait, the crowd, the cramped seating--the only bright spot was the food, bland and undemanding, and completely predictable in its general badness.

Without being asked, John opened up the doors dividing the adjoining rooms and stripped Rodney's bed. He asked before opening Rodney's suitcase and pulling out the soft, organically cleaned sheets and buckwheat hull pillow. "Where's your air purifier?"

"Other suitcase."

"Get it out and plug it in. I won't let you touch the sheets, but your own equipment is harmless. You're not two, McKay."

Irritated, though he knew he had no right to be ("guides are not valets"), Rodney started unpacking: air purifier, coffee maker, white noise generator, bottled water.

"Do you need to rest?" John asked. "Or do you want head out to the building?"

The site they were inspecting was a sports complex going up for the university. John was like a five-year-old--he liked the big trucks, the exposed girders, the scaffolding. He goofed around in the hardhat. He shadowed Rodney's footsteps, almost close enough to be annoying. But not quite. He didn't ask stupid questions while Rodney was tapping on walls and humming against girders.

That first afternoon, Rodney got further than he had expected. He didn't remember much but the work afterward. He took notes all through dinner, returned to the room and, exhausted, flopped onto the bed and fell asleep. They went back the next day. This was less productive; the local contractor was there, as well as the architect heading the design team. They talked continually and asked stupid questions. They both had swelled senses of self-importance, possibly in compensation for their lack of sense of humor. They were both watching Rodney with badly concealed resentment and worry. Even John seemed affected. He got very quiet after the first hour. He was also standing closer.

At about ten thirty that morning, while Rodney was tapping the concrete walls of what would be a locker room, he didn't hear John trying to get his attention. Eyes closed, listening to the dim vibration, trying to decide if the wall would, indeed, keep out the leach of wet soil, he pushed John away.

"McKay. Seriously. Come with me now."

Rodney blinked. He blinked again. "What? Why? Where?" Zoning. He'd been zoning, obviously. John was being overprotective or something. Well, fine. He felt thick and a little unsteady, actually.

John prodded him up into the temporary elevator, and on ground level, practically dragged him out into the thick, humid Florida morning. He pulled the small backpack Rodney always carried from his shoulder and said, "Sit down."

"Uh. What, here? No, that's a--what is that? It's a pallet of concrete, I'm not sitting here--"

"It's covered in plastic. Sit down." Shepard shoved him.

"Hey--!"

Sheppard grabbed Rodney's arm and shoved it into his field of vision. "Look," he said.

"At what? Oh...." The hives were raised and pale, coming out in light pink and getting darker by the second. Now that he was noticing his arm, Rodney realized that John's grip burned. His cloths felt like sandpaper, but no, that wasn't right. The clothing was fine. His skin was just tender. "Oh, god," Rodney said. His face was hot. His *hair* hurt. "Oh, god."

"I take it we have a problem? Hey, stop. Rodney. It's okay."

"Um, it's not. In case you haven't noticed." Even as Rodney watched, the darkening hives were coming out in thin lines, red circles nesting together in a ring, like the outline of a string of beads. Oh, god. It itched.

"Yes, it is. Whatever it was, we've got you away from it. We caught it early. You are going to be fine." He dug around in the back pack, produced the little plastic box that held Rodney's emergency kit.

"Do you know how to use that?" Rodney could, but he was starting to shake. He really didn't want to have to give the injection series himself.

"No, I didn't check the procedures when I took the assignment." Irked and sarcastic, he sounded a little like the way Rodney felt when someone implied that he didn't know how to judge the tensile strength of materials. For the first time, it occurred to him that it was conceivably possible that out there, somewhere, there was a guide who was as good at guiding as Rodney was at engineering. "I never took a class in sentinel medicine or first aid. I'm pretty much an idiot anyway." He undid Rodney's shirt and shoved it down enough to bare the shoulder. Holding the first syringe in his teeth, he grabbed a pinch of flesh, swabbed it with icy vinegar, dried with a sterile pad, and inserted the first needle.

You couldn't give a sentinel adrenaline; somehow their bodies knew it wasn't their own. This made dealing with allergies very problematic. The first shot was a micro-dose of cortisone. That would be enough to corral Rodney's immune system, provided shots two and three were antihistamines that he was currently tolerating as long as he got the heavy-duty stimulant in shot number four.

It seemed to take forever. The last two were large doses that took their time going in. "Hurry," Rodney hissed. His tongue was thick and heavy. Oh, damn. He swallowed experimentally; there was the lump in his throat, not messing up his breathing yet, but it felt large and hard, like a rock in his gullet. Damn.

"Rodney? How are you doing?" Gently, John pulled the shirt back into place, one hand still rubbing the back of Rodney's arm.

"I'm having a potentially fatal reaction--to something I--didn't even notice I was exposed to--how the hell do you think--" The sentence was loud and fast, but not as loud or fast as Rodney would have liked because he couldn't get his breath. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the time the kit didn't work. Maybe--

"Rodney, I need a body check."

"What, now? I'm a little busy here--"

"Yes, now. I need to know if I need to call an ambulance. How. Are. You. Doing."

Rodney's brain locked up. Every other guide had twigged pretty quickly to the fact that Rodney was completely useless when he was panicking. It wasn't like he was concealing it. Hell, it was very clear in his chart. There weren't enough words for stupid to describe John Sheppard--

John put his hand flat on Rodney's chest. "Close your eyes. Exhale slowly. All the way. Now, please."

Thrown and confused, Rodney complied.

"Slowly. Slowly. Okay. Okay." He took Rodney's arm and turned it over. The skin didn't hurt where he touched it. The chain hives had darkened to maroon, but were starting to fade. The swelling was down. "You're good. I think we've got it."

Rodney swallowed. The swallow felt...normal? didn't it? He tried again, daring to be hopeful.

"I'm going to take you back to the hotel."

Rodney was almost inclined to stay and work. He felt pretty good all things considered. And wherever he was, he wasn't going to feel *actually* good again today, so he might as well work. But his employers paid for a concentrating sentinel. John found a construction worker to take a message down to Rodney's colleagues and then they left.

The seven minute trip to the hotel was the first time John had driven. It was a shocking introduction to just how frightening his driving was. After the third minute, Rodney buried his face in his hands and didn't look again until they were parked.

"This is the third episode you've had here," John said as they got out of the car.

"Your driving is scary. Do you even have a license? And this is Florida. There's probably citrus pollen in the air."

"Florida is not that hard to avoid."

Rodney sighed. "It happens everywhere. If it isn't one thing, it's another. I'm not going to lock myself in my house..." At John's hard look, he added, "Anyway, I tried that. It didn't work."

"How often does it happen with those two present?"

"The general contractor? First time. Edwards?" Rodney paused. His memory was not as fast as it usually was. "He's been there for about half the ones in meetings back home." He caught John's look--the man was remarkably easy to read, even as little attention as Rodney paid to other people--and added, "He got the list. He knows what personal care products to avoid."

"Right. And the list is perfect, complete, and unchanging. And nobody ever invents new perfumes. And he never blows it off and says 'what the hell, it can't really be that dangerous.' Right?"

Rodney opened and shut his mouth.

Sheppard took Rodney's key and opened his door. "You don't go into unventilated areas with them again. You can't keep doing this. Even at these doses, cortisone will screw up your bones and your immune system. You can't keep doing this."

Rodney flopped down onto the bed. "I'm not worried about the hormones for the same reason I'm not worried about retirement savings. Sooner or later my metabolism will disassemble one of the shots on the same day whatever moron is working the ER makes a mistake, and I'll die. There's another kit in my suitcase. Would you mind replacing the one in the backpack?"

Usually, when Rodney didn't do this himself, he watched when someone else did it. This time, though, the stimulant wasn't quite up to defeating the sedating effects of the antihistamines, and he fell asleep.

He woke to late afternoon sunlight and John Sheppard sitting on the room's other bed reading one of Rodney's design journals. "Hi," he said.

Rodney felt unbalanced and not prepared. Although--what was he supposed to be prepared for? "Hmm?" he said.

"Hungry?"

"Starving," Rodney said. "Sushi." And then, "Damn."

"We can do sushi," John said kindly.

"The only sushi worth eating is in the mall." Double damn. Rodney didn't get sushi at home. He didn't believe in eating raw fish more than a thousand miles from a coast. But: Mall. Crowds. Noise. Stupid acoustics. Recycled air. Funny lights. In America, sometimes people at perfume counters squirted poison at you, although there were laws coming up to make that illegal.

"How badly do you want the sushi?" Rodney, still feeling thick and fuzzy, blinked at him numbly, and John sighed. "You're right. Okay? We can't keep you in a padded closet forever. So if you really want the sushi, we'll find a way to cope. I assume you've been there before. Any really urgent hazards?"

Rodney sat up and felt around for his shoes. Apparently they were doing this. "If we go in north of the Gap, we can skip the candle store that always smells like motor oil."

It turned out that going to the mall with John was actually *fun*. Rodney had never quite gotten out of the habit of making fun of the ugly furniture for sale at 'Madeline's' or the pathetic sentimentalism of the portrait studio, or the really ugly shoes (and how could you screw up men's shoes) on sale practically everywhere these days, but he had managed to quiet it down. Guides tended to give him dark looks when he openly mocked people.

John thought the colors of women's clothing that spring were outright scary. He thought the guy manning the desk at the computer store looked *just like* Bela Lagosi. He thought that there was no reason, ever, for a lamp to be shaped like a pineapple. It took only two minutes to reach the restaurant from the door north of the Gap, but by the end of that two minutes, Rodney was both stunned and breathless from laughing. John was pitiless and had an eye for the absurd.

It was half an hour later, when Rodney was about to take a bite out of the most perfect slice of tuna *ever* that he noticed what he should have noticed....hours ago. He put down the fish. "How did you know?"

John, swishing his tempura shrimp in the sauce, said, "Know what?"

Rodney put down the chopsticks. He locked his hands together and sat very still as he said, "You knew I was sick before I did."

"You were scratching."

"That can't be it. I was scratching? I scratch all the time. Sometimes. You've seen me scratch. You knew from that?"

"You were scratching differently. And then your voice sounded...different. When you talked."

"That's it?" And Rodney wasn't sure if he should be delighted or horrified. Maybe John was really, really, really good at observing the subtle. Maybe he'd just gotten lucky.

"I wasn't sure, but I thought better safe than sorry. You'd been in a functional zone for an hour anyway. Even if all you'd needed was a break...."

"I was scratching and talking funny. I don't know if I can use that. I mean, what will I tell the next guide, 'watch out if I scratch differently and talk funny?'"

"Next guide?" John asked. "Your client file didn't say you wanted a limited-term temp."

"Oh, I don't. But you'll leave. Everybody does. My record is eleven months." Rodney smiled sadly. "I hope it's amicable. I like you. You're not a total moron."

"Wow. I can't imagine why anybody would ever quit." But he looked amused not contemptuous, so Rodney didn't bother to defend himself.

After dinner they stopped by 'Sharper Image' and played with all the cool, new toys. They goofed off like teenagers until the management gave them dirty looks. "Movie?" John asked.

Rodney wanted to. He knew he'd never make it. "Tired," he said. "The near-death thing uses up a lot of energy."

Back at the hotel, Rodney found John waiting when he came out of the shower. "What?" Rodney said tiredly. "You know, the connecting door is in case I get into trouble, not so that you can chat all night."

"I'd like a body check before you get into bed. It's been a rough day."

Pretending patience--after all, this was the best guide he'd had in a long time, better than Kate, even, and he didn't want to chase him off in a hurry--Rodney closed his eyes for a moment and said, "I'm fine."

John looked at him narrowly. "You know, I've only been at this for a couple of years, but I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that."

Changing the subject, Rodney said, "Got a late start, didn't you? You look about my age."

"I was a pilot first," John said. "An accident messed up my balance. I can't ride a merry-go-round without Dramamine now. Guide school came after."

Rodney sat down on the bed. "Oh. My. God," he said. "That explains it, doesn't it? Your driving! You're damaged somehow and you don't process spatial--"

"Hey, hey, hey," Sheppard said, getting progressively louder. "One, I drive just the same before as after. Two, my driving is *fine* thank you very much. And three, does being really insulting usually work for you, or am I just an exception?"

There was a short, unhappy silence. Embarrassed, really wishing how he knew how to be kind, Rodney said, "So, guide school was your second choice."

He shrugged. "It was an aptitude thing. I...miss flying. I mean, really flying, not that misery yesterday. But I like the work. There's nothing wrong with that. Being a guide." He smiled thinly. "Lie down," he said. "It's late," although it wasn't. "Let's do a quick check and get some sleep." He turned out the light. The room was still clearly visible to sentinel eyes, but the harsh edges were gone.

Annoyed and slightly embarrassed, but not seeing any way out, Rodney closed his eyes. "I'm fine," he said.

"What's your heart rate?"

"I don't know," Rodney said.

"Estimate it. Not everybody's time sense is perfect."

Rodney's eyes popped open. "My time sense is fine. I just don't notice my heart unless something's wrong."

Seriousness and frowning were never things Rodney liked to see in a guide. "Look, if I'm not noticing it, I'm fine. If something's wrong, it's all fast and loud and...not noticing is better." Much better. By a lot. Really.

John sat down on the bed and laid his hand on Rodney's chest. Rodney, used to filtering out his own body, wasn't used to the sudden closeness of this strange and new body at all. John was warm. And wet. And moving. Solid but supple and filled with motion. Rodney couldn't feel his own heart, but through the contact he could feel John's.

"Your heart's fine, Rodney," John said, his voice low and calm. "It's not your enemy. It's your center. It's your fulcrum. Your balance point. It's even and steady. You're okay." John increased the pressure just slightly, and suddenly Rodney could feel his own pulse reflected back through John's body. The twin rhythms resonated through the contact at Rodney's chest and in their hips where they brushed together. They were beating at about the same speed, but not on a single cycle. It felt like music.

John was right. Rodney's heart was fine.

"The next thing is to relax and let it slow down a little. Will you do that for me?"

"I'll double it," Rodney whispered, "the incentive. I'll have to sell some stocks, but that won't be a problem. I've got the assets."

"What are you talking about? And stop changing the subject."

"I'll do anything. Just stay. Please."

John thought about that. "I'm not planning on leaving."

"No efficiency hotel room," Rodney said. "Buy a house. Or, hey, just stay with me."

Sheppard reached out, generally brushed Rodney's hair with his free hand. "How about we prove we can make it through the first week?" he coaxed gently. "We start trying to make this work by making it work *right now*. Focus on this moment. Is this a bad moment, Rodney? It's not. You're okay. This moment is okay. Be right here in it with me. Slow your breathing, and your heart rate will follow."

The next day they went back to the site. Rodney finished the entire survey even though John made him take twice as many breaks as usual. Also--John wouldn't let anybody approach Rodney physically. He was never allowed in an enclosed space (even if it was large) with either construction workers or colleagues. Edwards threw up his hands and said, "My God, McKay, you've found someone even more paranoid than you are."

Although it was kind of weird and Rodney wasn't used to a guide who took so much of his autonomy, he had smiled icily and said, "Yeah. Who knew?"

And that was another thing. Sheppard was completely unmovable. He refused to be intimidated by either logic or mockery. When Rodney flat out refused to comply, John had answered, "Read the contract. You can fire me, but you can't overrule me. You're taking a break." Even Rodney's raw, "I've been living with this body for twenty-seven years, I think I know it a lot better than you do after, what is it, four days?" was only met with, "You are screwing it up. So far this year, you're averaging three point seven episodes a *month*, and that is up sixty-three percent over this time last year. You cannot keep doing this."

"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I don't know--and nothing makes a difference. I've changed my diet, all my personal care products three times, I moved--And it doesn't--every change, things get worse--" And then he was upset, and had to let Sheppard lead him out into daylight and sit him down on a pallet of pavers.

"Rodney. The coping mechanism you've been using to survive is to ignore your body. Because noticing it, paying attention...that would have led to a continuous state of perfectly justified panic. I get that. Too much. Too scary. Too totally out of control. So the shortcut is just to ignore it all. But the coping mechanism you've been using to survive, it's killing you now. You don't feel your own warning signals. All your attention is intellectual. Nothing is visceral. You're barely in your body at all. You eat on a schedule because you don't ever check to see if you're hungry."

"And you know this after four days," Rodney said sourly. John just looked at him, and Rodney found himself giving in: "I can't pay attention to myself. I always feel like my chest is tight and my skin itches and I have a headache. I always think I smell lemons. I have no idea when the problem is real, and if I pay attention...the reaction is real, whether I've been exposed to anything or not."

John opened his mouth to speak. Rodney said quickly, "Please don't tell me it's all in my head. I really don't need to hear that. My parents have been telling me it's all in my head since I was four. That may be true, but it doesn't *help*"

Sheppard nodded calmly. "I won't tell you that," he said "I won't tell you, you have to pay attention to your body either. That's...not something we can fix quickly. But for right now, you're going to have to let me pay attention to your body for you. You have to. You have to let me do it, and you have to trust me, or you are going to die."

"I guess I've got nothing to lose," Rodney whispered. But he couldn't stop himself from thinking--hoping, even, though he knew that was going too far--that maybe John loved sentinels the way Rodney loved buildings. And maybe John could read Rodney's body the way Rodney could tell when a wall wasn't plumb or how much snow a roof could support or when concrete wasn't curing right.

Weirdly, though they'd taken many more breaks than Rodney usually did, they still managed to finish the entire inspection that day. It wasn't clear how goofing off had made him more efficient, but they changed the reservations and flew home a day early.

The two days following a site visit, Rodney always worked at home writing up the report. The notes he took never made any sense to anyone else, and it took a while to turn them into a language normal people could understand. Here, too, he was forced to take extravagant breaks. These included cooking meals from scratch. "Look," Rodney said reasonably. "My diet is fine. Sandwiches are a perfectly adequate--"

"It's not the content of the meal," John said. "It's the cooking. You like cooking. It calms you down."

Rodney stopped stirring the marinade he was making and turned around. "I'm not sure I like that. Being manipulated. I mean, the old days of "Rodney, you ass, will you just shut up and relax," lacked something. I admit that. But mind games...."

John rolled his eyes. "I'm not playing a mind game. I didn't trick you. And if you had asked, I'd have told you the truth. I did tell you the truth."

"Whatever. I know you mean well." Rodney dropped the sliced chicken into the marinade and stirred it around. "But the whole relaxing thing, it's bull. Relaxing doesn't make any difference. And all of the nattering about relaxing, that's just irritating."

John didn't answer. Rodney washed his hands and the spoon. When he turned and looked, John was still watching him. "What?" Rodney asked.

"Don't take this the wrong way. But I'm not sure you've ever been relaxed."

"I relax!" Rodney protested, affronted. "I read. I watch TV. I...sleep."

John smirked and rolled his eyes. "I've seen you sleep. And you get barely enough--"

"I average seven and a half hours of sleep a night."

John opened his mouth to argue and then shut it again and said reasonably, "You're continually on the verge of panic or exhaustion or both. If you're not calm, you can't take control of your physiology and you don't have any reserves of strength to deal with emergencies. You're frequently angry, in a hurry--"

"Well, I'm sort of on a clock, here."

"I'd rather you weren't," John said. "If it's any consolation, it's probably not your fault. You're Canadian. Everybody knows they don't teach Canadian sentinels shit. You never learned the really useful techniques."

Rodney would have liked to defend himself. He wasn't sure how. He suspected John might have a point. And it was kind of embarrassing.

"Look, the relaxing thing, that's not negotiable. In that you *will* learn to relax, and you'll get good at it, although I'm flexible about how. But the point is, you can fire me, but you can't get out of it otherwise."

Rodney knew he was being backed into a corner. He didn't like it. In principle. Looking at John....

He gave in.

The first day back at the office, Mal brought Rodney a set of blueprints and hovered at Rodney's shoulder as he looked at them. A theater for Dallas-Fort Worth. Like everything Malcolm brought him, it was completely over the top. Vaguely deco, impossibly balanced, gaudy...pointlessly extravagant and completely inefficient. There wasn't one straight line in the entire plan. And, oh look, a three story glass curtain wall.

"Can you make it work, Rodney?"

Rodney suppressed his sigh. "Don't I always?"

Malcolm patted his shoulder and left. John came over to look. "Well," he said. "That looks...challenging."

Rodney smiled sourly. "I won't be bored, no. It's just...not very meaningful." Vapid, he didn't say. Impressive, but empty. And inefficient. And tacky. But Rodney could keep it from collapsing under its own impossible weight. And all that glass...would be challenging.

At the office, Rodney spent the next week forcing himself to work on Mal's latest horror and revising the plans for an ornamental tower for a fairground in Nebraska. John spent his days in the corner of Rodney's office reading up on sentinel medicine. Rodney didn't look too closely at the journals and accordion folded print-outs and pale Xeroxes. He didn't know what John was researching. He didn't want to know if John understood what he was reading...or if it was new material or something he was reading so that Rodney would see and be reassured by the idea of a competent guide.

Rodney wondered if he was paranoid.

He wondered if it was working. He couldn't tell if he felt reassured or not.

John let Rodney work at home on Saturday, but demanded they have a picnic lunch in the park on Sunday. That was about as bad as you'd think it would be; buggy and damp and dirty. The sun was too bright, and the sunscreen was itchy. Rodney was a poor sport (because who wanted to do this again?) but not mean about it (because he didn't want John to feel his efforts were unappreciated, even though they were sadly misguided. Picnics? Please.)

And there was another thing. He wanted body checks three times a day: at lunch, after work, and before bed. He didn't ask for anything complicated, like bladder pressure or blood pressure or exact temperature. He didn't pull out extravagant biofeedback equipment. He wanted Rodney's heart rate and a checklist of physical discomforts. Rodney tried bluffing. John used his watch and two gentle fingers at Rodney's wrist to check his answer.

On Monday, Edwards brought in a packet of paperwork from Florida. He claimed it didn't make any sense. Rodney had barely taken a look when John seized his hands and pushed the chair back from the desk.

Confused, Rodney tried to push him away.

"Stop," John's voice was firm and certain. "Stop. Let it go. Come with me. Now."

"What? Hey--" But he gave in to strong hands and found himself swiftly swept into the tiny corporate kitchen. John shoved Rodney up against the sink and washed his hands.

"What's wrong?" Rodney asked.

John hesitated, which was disturbing because it was unusual. "You're reacting to something."

"Really?" Rodney squeaked.

The water was cold. Now that Rodney knew, the skin on his hands seemed to be burning under the chill.

From behind, John hugged him. "Hush. Relax. You're going to be fine."

"You're just saying that. You don't know that."

"You're hyperventilating. Rodney, you need to slow down--"

"I can't breathe--"

"Relax. You're still all right."

"The kit," Rodney wheezed, and damn, he was wheezing. Through the water he could see the red mottling creep up his arms. They didn't itch, they hurt, and Rodney was watching the hives come up.

"We've caught it early. We might be able to head it off. You might not need--"

"Help me." Panicking, Rodney pushed back, and struggled free of John's hands. You did not combat a systemic allergic reaction with *cold water*. Rodney could hear his heart now. It was like thundering hooves in his ear, a frantic gallop. Stumbling, Rodney started toward the door.

"Where are you going?" John's voice was hard and calm, and Rodney hated him.

"My bag," he gasped over his shoulder.

"I've got it." He had it. John reached into the bag and produced an emergency kit.

"Please," Rodney said.

"Yeah. Come here." John set the kit on the room's tiny break table and popped the lid.

"Please."

"Yes. Yes. It's all right. Sit here. It's all right."

"I'll do it," Rodney began.

"I'll do it. I'll be faster. It's all right."

John's hands were cold. The swap was colder. The shots burned.

John tossed the spent syringes into the garbage and rubbed the back of Rodney's arm to sooth away the ache four injections left. It *hurt*. More than it should, which meant pain perception was off track. Rodney pressed his hands to his burning face and waited for the shot to work. There was nothing else to do, not until it was clear one way or the other.

The rubbing at his arm was getting annoying. Rodney seized the hand and brought it around so he could smell it. John smelled distressed. "Are you pissed at me or just disappointed?" Rodney whispered.

"Neither." He went over to close the door they'd left open in their rush. "I panicked."

Rodney snorted weakly. "You panicked?"

"Yeah. I'm more afraid of the drugs than the allergies. But you're really not ready to take control of your body. You're really not ready." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Rodney. I'm so sorry. I tried to head it off and.... We're just not there yet. I'm sorry."

Rodney looked away. "I know you wouldn't--I don't know why I freaked. I shouldn't have." Not trusting a guide, that was serious. Rodney had had lots of different fights with guides. The I-don't-trust-you fights were by far the most brutal.

"Don't apologize for that. It takes time to build that kind of relationship. To reach the point where we could face down something that scary. We're not there yet, and it'll take a while."

A fat tear slid down Rodney's face. "My eyes are watering," he said, hoping John wouldn't hear the tremor in his voice.

"Common symptom of allergies."

John took him home. Rodney was sleepy and numb and didn't argue.

When he woke on the couch, John handed him a milkshake and some aspirin and said, "You have to get off the Florida project. There's a contaminant on the site or in the contracting office."

Rodney thought about that. "Are you sure?"

"Would you like to test it? I asked Myrtle to collect the documents and vacuum your desk, but I could give you a set to play with."

Rodney shivered. "No." But if he couldn't do his job....

John sat down next to him. "Do you feel like a walk? Or do you want a shower?"

Rodney didn't have energy for either, but it turned out that the mention of a shower wasn't so much an offer as a politely phrased order. After the shower, John fed him left over meatloaf and potatoes, put bad scifi on the VCR and settled on the couch beside Rodney.

Rodney fell asleep against his shoulder. He realized the next morning that when John had woken him and led him to bed he hadn't asked for a body check.

Maybe that wasn't a bad sign. Maybe John was just cutting Rodney a break because it had been a bad day and they were both tired. But maybe he'd just given up and decided Rodney couldn't be taught.

Normally, John would ask at 11:45, when Rodney broke for lunch. If he didn't ask today, well, maybe it would slip his mind, except John never seemed to forget anything important. So if he didn't ask, he was silently admitting that Rodney couldn't--

At 11:40, Rodney saved his file, closed autoCAD, and focused on the charming analog clock on his desk. It took him three tries, but when John set aside the textbook he was reading and asked Rodney if he was ready to take a break, Rodney answered, "One-thirteen."

John frowned slightly. "Eleven-forty-five."

"No, my heart rate."

"Oh." John sighed. "Let's work on that."

It wasn't a response Rodney understood. "Work on that?"

"Nothing difficult. Relax, although that's kind of the point."

"Um, what?" Rodney was thoroughly confused.

John pulled up a chair and sat very close. "Are you upset or worried about something?"

"Um, no," Rodney said, wondering if this was a trick question.

"Are you mad at anybody?"

Rodney glanced at Mal's disastrous theater. "Not particularly."

"Okay. That's good. That's good. You're tense, but there's no specific reason."

"Oh. Yes," Rodney said. "My usual generalized frenzy."

"Let it go. Okay? Just relax. You don't need to protect yourself. Or be particularly alert. You're just sitting in your office. It's safe. There's no one here who will hurt you."

Rodney was a little surprised. How had they gotten from Rodney beating John to the pre-lunch body check, to an exercise to 'fix' something? Had John thought Rodney was complaining about the high number?

"You're safe here."

"You won't hurt me," Rodney whispered.

"No. You're safe." He slid warm fingers around Rodney's wrist. "Slow your breathing down, okay? Just relax." Rodney tried to comply, but a few minutes later, John squeezed his wrist gently and said, "You're not breathing right."

"Oh, please. Like I've never heard that before."

John rubbed his free hand against Rodney's belly. "Breath so that my hand moves. Push me out."

"Look, you're not the first person to do this, okay? Nobody has been able to teach me to relax. It's just not happening."

"So, don't try to relax. Just breathe properly, and sit here with me. You don't have to do anything. You can't do it wrong. Just be here with me. A little rest."

Rodney was annoyed and a little embarrassed, but he wanted to appear willing even if he couldn't manage to appear competent. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of pushing against John's hand with his stomach. The silence seemed to go on for a very long time, but when John said, "Rodney, tell me your heart rate," Rodney opened his eyes to see that it was only eleven forty-nine.

Rodney watched the sweep of the second hand, trying not to lose count of the subtle internal shakings that marked his heart beat. "Ninety-three," he said at last.

John grinned, and the smile seemed to go right to Rodney's core. Sadly, the approval wasn't deserved. "Are you kidding? Even I know that ninety-three isn't a good number. Nothing. And that was the best I can do--"

"Shhh. Enough. You dropped it by seventeen percent. Besides which, this is the first time it's been below one hundred without you being sedated."

"I can't--"

"You can. You did. And with practice, it you will be able to do better."

Rodney laughed at that. Not on purpose. It was an ugly sound.

John withdrew his hands. Glanced down. Took a deep breath. "Look," he said. "I'm not asking you to change your personality. Or even your outlook. I know it must seem like guides are always telling you what to do, how to be, but all I am asking is for you to learn a *skill.* Some techniques. It's not a big deal."

"It's not possible," Rodney answered, and there was venom in his voice. "I can't do it. I know my limitations."

"And--what? Accept them?" he blinked. "Wait. Genius. Right. I bet everything you tried, you got the first time. Am I right? I am right. You never really had to really work at anything. You never learned to fail."

"I fail just fine," Rodney said stiffly. "There are a lot of things I can't do."

"And so you give up."

"Don't you dare--" Rodney began. And then, "I've been trying for days."

"And you've made progress. You've gotten better. But it's not enough. Not for you. You're used to picking things up at once. The first time. No problem. What you did today was pretty good. It'll be better tomorrow. Pretty soon, you'll be ready to move on to harder things. But not if you give up."

Rodney stiffened, lifting his chin slightly. "And what will it take for you to give up?" It didn't come out the way Rodney had intended. Or perhaps he hadn't realized what he'd intended until he'd said it. Rodney really wished he could take the words back.

John pinned Rodney with his eyes, and Rodney wished *harder* that he could take the words back. John said, "You'll have to fire me."

"Oh," Rodney said. "Um. Okay."

"Okay, then. We've worked on this enough for now. What did we bring for lunch?" Rodney had packed meatloaf sandwiches. They ate them in the park across the street. John liked to get Rodney out of the building on at least one break a day, and Rodney had given up arguing about it.

Over the next few days, Rodney was as cooperative as he knew how to be. He managed to get his heart rate down into the eighties once. John insisted Rodney keep cooking, but he did the shopping, which meant Rodney didn't have to deal with supermarkets, so it seemed an even trade. They rented videos, but Rodney never saw the end of the second movie; he fell asleep each night with his head tilted sideways so that it rested on John's shoulder.

Thursday night Rodney fell asleep during "Cat People," which was no loss. He woke up with his head in John's lap and John's fingers fluffing through his hair. Rodney opened his eyes. The movie was over, and the room was dark. John smiled as Rodney stirred.

"Sorry," Rodney muttered, knowing he should move, really not wanting to. "Did it again."

The smile got bigger. "No biggie. You're adorable when you're asleep." He sighed and looked away. "Maybe I shouldn't have said that."

Rodney thought about that. "Why not?" he asked. He was suspected that nobody had ever called him adorable before. He wasn't sure-- since it was a novel experience--but he was disposed toward liking it.

"It happens, sometimes. Sentinels and guides get involved. But it's not always a good thing. Being too emotionally....Sometimes it gets codependent or manipulative."

Right. How could he forget? "I'm not real good at having friends. We can...We could count on me screwing it up." He tried to sound amused.

John sighed. "It's not you I'm worried about. You're fine. But I'm...I'm already making mistakes because when you're in trouble I get scared."

Rodney thought about that. "You're still the best guide. I mean, I'm not condoning slacking off. But. You know. Nobody's perfect anyway." Rodney swallowed. "The best ever."

John leaned down so that their temples brushed together. John's smell was strong this way. It was a wonderful smell, and powerful. Rodney wanted more.

"Have you ever been in love?" John asked. It was the soft voice he used to ask Rodney about his medical history.

"No, I don't believe in love. It's all brain chemistry and pheromones and *hormones*. It's a biological illusion that keeps us perpetuating the species." He reconsidered what John might be asking. "I've had plenty of sex. In college, a lot of people were curious about what sex with a sentinel would be like."

"So you've had a lot of experience, some of it very bad."

"Heh. Yeah. What about you? Have you ever....with a client before?" Rodney wasn't sure if 'yes' or 'no' would be the better answer. Maybe John had a thing for sentinels....which would be unflattering, definitely, but maybe not a bad thing. Maybe.

"Partner. And no, I haven't. And I never thought I would."

Rodney thought about that. He thought about how gentle John was and how he didn't get upset when Rodney was sick. Maybe the 'attraction' was being needed so damn badly. Guides liked to be needed. "Have you ever been partnered with a fragile sentinel before?"

"My probationary year I worked at the hospice in St. Johnsbury."

"Oh." That was one of the places where sentinels went to die. Actually, this answered a lot of questions (such as How was John so damn fast at injections? and Why didn't he ever seem shocked at Rodney's problems?), but it didn't explain the most important question, which was, Why did John like him, especially considering that Rodney wasn't charming or friendly and wasn't trying to be likable? "So. Why me?"

"I honestly don't know. I don't know. They taught us to know our own feelings, to face them, not to repress or deny or pretend to ourselves...but I don't know why you. I just know that it's more personal than it's ever been for me before."

Rodney thought about that. It should make him nervous, a guide admitting a limit to his understanding of a situation. It didn't. Rodney also thought about John's hand, which was resting on Rodney's belly. He could feel the warm palm through his shirt. The meaty under-thumb part was a weight. The light resting of fingers was like a caress. It seemed more *real* than, well, a lot of things. Than anything. Yes, more real, more solid, more three dimensional than anything else. Yes, the rest of the world was like a 2d autoCAD drawing, and the only thing that was actually concrete was John's hand. And Rodney's belly where he was being touched. That was real and getting more so by the second--

"Why me?" John asked, his voice interrupting the incipient zone.

"You're smart. And funny. And you're not mean and small and weak inside."

"I'm a good guide," John said softly. "I'm perceptive and very patient."

"I like you." He waited, but John didn't answer that, so he clearly didn't understand. "I don't like people. People are the least likable thing about the world. But I like you."

"Oh."

They spent the night on the couch like that. Probably, Rodney thought, because neither one of them wanted to separate and neither wanted to suggest spending the night in the same bed. But that was okay, because even though the couch wasn't nearly as comfortable as Rodney's mattress, being relaxed and sleeping soundly seemed to make up for that.

As they were getting ready for work, John announced that while Rodney could work on Saturday if he wanted, on Sunday they were going to Six Flags.

"Ugh. Why?"

John rolled his eyes. "It's *fun*." He grinned. "It's fun with *rides*."

Rodney frowned. "You can't ride rides."

John shrugged. "I wasn't kidding about the Dramamine. But you'll have to drive."

"You know," Rodney began, trying for casual, "There is this really good theme park in Florida. I would take you, if you let me go--"

"We're not going to the Tampa site again."

"John. Look. I have to do my job."

"Give me three weeks without an episode and we'll talk about it. But not now."

Rodney was confused. He wasn't sure if he should be frustrated or pissed or...something. "All of a sudden it's like I've got a parent who gives a shit or something. I mean, this is like having curfew again or having to ask if I can borrow the car. Am I twelve? John, I cannot live my life without risk. There is nothing, for me, that isn't dangerous."

John's face was weirdly neutral. He said, "That is true. But I think you've gotten so overwhelmed by living with that risk that you can't do a rational risk-assessment anymore. You can't separate out the very dangerous and the mildly dangerous--"

"There is no mildly dangerous: dead is dead--"

"There you go. The only times I've seen you sick have been when you were standing in or in contact with items from the Tampa arena, and we are going to stay away from that at least until your body has had a chance to settle down. Right now, your immune system has a hair-trigger response. I'm not going to take that chance."

Rodney didn't know what to say. Other guides had tried to boss him around, but they'd been idiots, and John wasn't. Also--most of the guides he'd had had been easy to intimidate. Yelling wouldn't change John's mind. Throwing a tantrum was out, and that didn't leave Rodney with any options he understood.

Rodney turned away and concentrated on assembling the lunch bags.

On Saturday, Rodney tried to work. He couldn't concentrate, though. Every time John shifted position or turned a page or took a drink of water, Rodney's senses zeroed in on him and wouldn't let go. Rodney was sure he could hear John's heartbeat from half-way across the room. And Rodney just didn't have hearing that good.

He turned on the stereo.

That didn't help. Unable to hear John, he started smelling him. He smelled...good.

Rodney forced his attention back to the model taking shape on his computer screen and tried to remember what he'd been doing. Other guides had only rarely been a distraction before, and only because they were irritating. Not because Rodney was imagining their body heat.

Sighing, Rodney closed the program without saving his changes (because they were crap) and joined John on the couch.

John closed his book and smiled. "Want to go jogging?"

Rodney laughed. "You're kidding."

"The exercise would be good for you."

His eyes were eager and affectionate. and his scent was nearly irresistible. "A walk would be nice," he said.

Rodney hadn't been sure if John was serious, but the next day he found himself at a theme park walking slowly around a Ferris wheel trying to decide if it was solid enough to consider riding.

"You don't have to get on if you don't want to," John said reasonably. It was the first thing he'd said in twenty minutes. He had (yes, really) taken a pill for nausea and it had shifted his brain into a lower gear.

"If you think I'm letting *you* get on something that isn't safe, you can...just stop thinking and obey orders. Start by shutting up." Rodney closed his eyes and listened for vibrations. Unfortunately, he didn't hear anything horrifying. As far as Rodney could tell, the Ferris wheel would be fine for several months even if it got no maintenance in the mean time. He wished he could lie, but he couldn't, not about engineering. "All right. Fine."

They were in line for twenty minutes. Rodney passed the time by listing other fun things they could be doing. John just smiled.

Rodney had assumed that being two stories in the air in a rocking, moving cart would be scary. And it was. But despite the fact that his eyes were telling him that he was a lot higher and a lot more open than he wanted to be, he knew the mechanism was stable. He wasn't actually in danger. He *knew* that. He could see and hear and very nearly taste that. Rodney had spent too much of his life terrified because there was something to really be afraid *of* to waste energy being afraid of something that wouldn't kill him, so he settled down and pretended to enjoy it.

John whooped and cheered and pointed at things they could see in the distance. It was sort of cute, in a juvenile way. Magnanimously, Rodney did not point out that he could see much, *much* better than John. When they got off, John couldn't walk in a straight line. Also, he was tripping over his feet. He wrapped his hand around Rodney's upper arm and let him lead. "Find us a roller coaster," he said.

Rodney stopped so shortly that John nearly fell. "You're doing this on purpose," he accused. "You're--you're making yourself all vulnerable. You're trusting me so I'll trust you back."

"Well, yeah, but you're missing the point. I already do trust you."

There was a wooden roller coaster. It was solid. It wasn't making any terrifying noises. Loud noises, oh, it was amazingly expressive. But it wasn't going to collapse, and it was the least flashy with regard to content (no corkscrew turns or flipping upside down) so Rodney led them over to the line.

"So what kind of theme parks do they have in Canada?"

"I never paid much attention."

"Oh, come on, even if you never went, you must have at least wanted to."

Rodney wondered how much of this he wanted to talk about. Or rather, how much of this he wanted to talk about right now. "I was pretty sick. As a kid." He snuck a glance sideways. John was waiting calmly. "Sentinels don't run in my family. My parents didn't know what to do with me. Even when they tried, they did everything wrong."

They reached the head of the line, then, and Rodney was spared having to go into more detail by climbing into the cart.

It was a dreadful mistake. As soon as the cart began to move, Rodney could feel the movement throughout the entire structure; the low thrum of vibrating wood, the sweet call of steel, god, oh, god, it was music, it was huge, it was in Rodney's body, it was--

moving so fast--

Even with his eyes open, Rodney could see the shape of the truss in his mind. The movement of the track as they passed over it was--should be horrifying, Rodney realized dimly--but wasn't because each sway-- he predicted it a moment before it happened, and even when the shift was on the order of a couple of feet, it felt perfectly natural.

Sang. It sang. Wood sang.

The height, the drop, Rodney was dimly aware of both. Neither was nearly as important as the symphony of vibration, hundreds of feet of coiling song, bigger, brighter, more powerful than Rodney had expected.

And then the song was gone and the silence was deafening and there was John, shaking Rodney by the shoulders and whispering, "Breathe, breathe, I'm sorry, it's over, breathe--"  
Rodney leaped to his feet, stumbling out of the car and brushing past a couple of shocked and worried-looking attendants. John was right behind him, chattering about--something, Rodney couldn't focus on the words.

There were steps. Wooden steps. Not many, but they vibrated up his legs, made his heart shake in sympathy.

And then John's hands were there. Solid. Calming. They quelled the vibration, spread silence everywhere they touched, pushed Rodney down onto a bench. John half fell to his knees in the grass. "Look at me, let me see your eyes," and these words made sense. Well, they were *nonsense* but they were words at least.

Rodney blinked. "Uhg," he said.

"Rodney? Are you okay?"

Rodney swallowed. John pushed a bottle of water into his hands, helped him lift it and drink. Rodney tasted the traces of salt and sulfur compounds in the water; he didn't usually. He pushed the bottle away. "Well that worked," he muttered irritably.

John frowned. "What? Rodney? Are you with me?"

Rodney took a deep breath. "If the point of this was to get me to pay attention to my body, it worked. All right? I'm....way more in my body then--damn. Damn."

John took the water, gently squeezed Rodney's hands. "Hey? I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to do anything. It was just supposed to be fun. That's all."

Rodney leaned forward, wished he were one of those sentinels who could tell what people were thinking and when they were fuzzing the truth. "For fun. So this is what? Fun therapy? How is that supposed to work? No. Really. How is this supposed to work? I can't get anything out of it if I don't know what to do."

John sat back on his heels. "Will you stop over thinking this? This isn't a trust exercise. It's not Fun Therapy. It's just...." he stopped abruptly.

"Just what?" The ground was steady under Rodney's feet. The memory of the full body song was fading. "Well?"

"Well, I guess it was sort of a date. It was the best thing to do I could think of. I thought you'd enjoy it."

"Oh." Sort of a date. Which was an ulterior motive, but not one that Rodney's other guides had ever had. Huh. Rodney laughed weakly. "How's it going?"

"I'm thinking we should go hiking next time, actually." He sighed. "That wasn't fear, was it? You were....you perceive *things*--"

"Engineering," Rodney whispered. "Structure." Things, yes, built things. "A wooden roller coaster. I had no idea...."

"Do you want to go home?"

"No. I'm fine. A little hungry maybe."

They found an ugly little food kiosk (crude construction that was mostly cement block and particle board) where John bought himself a couple of hotdogs and some nachos (possibly made of particle board as well). Rodney, horrified, pulled a thermos of apple juice and bag of homemade granola out of his backpack. "You're kidding about eating that, right?"

"No. Want some?"

"Thanks. No."

"I bet you could tell what it's made of." He offered up an uneaten hotdog."

"Very funny. I promise you don't want to know." He offered the bag of granola. "Real food?"

John grinned and plucked a raisin. "Iron. Yum."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "You know, most guides have a basic understanding of nutrition."

"How are you feeling? You okay?"

"Yeah. It wasn't bad. Just. Extreme. Actually, it was kind of like sex. Except without the socially awkward part. Well, until the end there when you panicked."

John leaned forward. "What was it like? What did you feel?"

"It was--I can't." He couldn't. There weren't words. "It was like going to the symphony."

"What's that like?"

Rodney shook his head.

"Is it good?"

"I've always wanted to see the Acropolis," Rodney said. "That's too long in a plane, I couldn't do it. And sentinel medical care in Greece, forget it. But seeing the Acropolis, that would be the best thing in the world. The symphony is the second best thing."

John gave Rodney a very soft look and said, "Okay, next time the symphony."

After lunch they took a walk to let their stomachs settle while Rodney picked another roller coaster. All the rest were steel, but that was fine. Rodney wouldn't be ready to ride a wooden one again for days. If ever. He stopped, finally, before a short ride with a double loop in it.

"Are you sure? It flips upside down."

"It's sturdy and it obeys all physical laws. Yes, I'm sure. It's perfectly safe."

The line was half an hour. The ride was fantastic. Rodney was dizzy and exhilarated as he stumbled off the housing, staggered off the path and threw up his healthy lunch. "We have to go to Florida!" he announced.

John patted his back and handed him the water. "Rinse. And there are plenty of other places to go. King's Island--"

Rodney swished and spit. "No. John. The numbers from Tampa don't add up. I need to go look at it all myself."

"No. Not for a while, anyway. Something about the Tampa site is setting you off--"

"Yes, and given that the numbers don't add up, do you really think that is an accident?" Full body vertigo had given him a wonderful mental clarity. Somewhere at the top of the second loop, a bunch of tiny, meaningless discrepancies had coalesced into a brilliant certainty. "They know I'll catch them if I spend too much time looking."

"Rodney...you're talking about attempted murder. The courts--it's very serious, screwing with a sentinel on purpose. The risk if you're caught--"

"Yeah, and there's a lot of risk attached to--whatever they're doing. Cutting corners? Embezzlement? Sabotage?"

"Sabotage?"

"Don't say I'm paranoid. Come on. We have to go in to the office. I need to look at the progress reports again."

John made Rodney wear gloves and a face mask to look at the paperwork on the Tampa coliseum. After a couple of hours, John made him stop to eat some sesame crackers and coffee. "Leave it here," Rodney said, and John pushed his chair back from the desk, saying, "You are not going to eat while playing with fedexes from Florida go into the kitchen and wash your hands."

Almost as soon as Rodney got back to work, John was clamoring for attention again. He planted himself behind Rodney and tapped his shoulder persistently. "What?" Rodney grunted, absently wishing for a guide that didn't take his job so seriously.

"It's time to go home."

"It's barely seven O'clock," Rodney said grumpily.

"It's close to ten. And should I be worried about your time sense being all screwed up?"

"It's...What?" It was almost ten. Rodney looked helplessly at the stack of reports and receipts and blueprints before him. "I still haven't found it."

"You can try again tomorrow. It will still be here."

Rodney hesitated, almost reaching to rub his eyes with his gloved hands.

"You'll be here tomorrow, too, Rodney. Let's go home." He leaned down and wrapped his arms around Rodney's shoulders. "Tomorrow, Sweetheart."

Rodney allowed John to strip off the gloves and safety mask and send him to the bathroom to wash before going home.

Irritatingly, it turned out John was right. Exhaustion was swamping Rodney before they even made it to the car. John made him eat a banana on the way home, though Rodney would really rather have slept. When they got to Rodney's condo, John made him shower, though Rodney felt like just dropping onto the bed and passing out.

When Rodney came out of the shower--clean and warm and damp and stumbling with profound tiredness--John was waiting. He was also clean and damp. He was watching Rodney with patient eyes that promised careful relaxation and a body check.

Rodney tossed his towel onto the hamper and fell forward onto the bed. "No, please," he whined. "Look, just, here, lie down here." He held out his hands.

John, still in his bathrobe, shoved the covers down, out from under Rodney, and then nestled in beside him under the sheet. "Is this all right?"

"Yes, fine. Wonderful. Shut up and go to sleep." He shoved John sideways so that he was lying on his back and wiggled so that his head was on John's shoulder. "Good. Go to sleep."

Miraculously, wonderfully, John's hands came up around him.

Rodney woke with his face pressed to the back of John's neck. He was holding on tightly. John was asleep. Rodney felt very good. Better than he had for a long time. He was getting better sleep than he'd been used to. He felt...strangely relaxed. Tranquil. Comfortable in his skin--which, he realized, didn't itch. At all. No sparse headache, either. No weight in his chest. No tenderness in his joints. Good, he felt good. John--

Nothing in Rodney's life had prepared him for this, for John Sheppard. Rodney had had competent guides before. Competence...wasn't enough. Wasn't even the right question. Happiness, maybe. Or love.

Which made no sense. Unless Rodney was just so happy, he wasn't noticing his endless weaknesses any more. He had never met anyone this wonderful. This funny. This open. This strong--

John stirred in Rodney's arms. "Hey," he whispered. "It's okay. I'm right here. Easy."

Rodney realized he was holding John so tightly he couldn't breathe. He eased up. "Sorry."

"I've been thinking. If you go to Florida and they know you're coming...they'll have time to get ready."

"Are we going? I need to go."

"Yeah. Yeah...you have some vacation time stocked up. We could say we're taking a trip up to Vermont, to a doctor I know associated with the clinic. For an evaluation."

"Ah," Rodney said, smiling, "but really we'd be going to Florida for a surprise site inspection. You're devious. I like that." He liked it a lot. He liked it so much he found himself nuzzling the back of John's neck.

John turned in Rodney's arms. "We'd go to Florida *after* Vermont."

"What?--no. No."

"Rodney, he's good, amazing." Rodney tried to pull away, but gentle hands held him still. "If there's something you're not getting that you need. Or something we need to be doing differently. Rodney, I need to know."

"No, look, I've been 'evaluated.' It takes all day, they run all kinds of tests. And then they tell me I need to relax. Which is stupid because I *can't*."

"He's a friend of mine. He's gentle, Rodney. And he's good. If anybody can help you...." Light hands smoothed Rodney's hair, brushed against his cheek. "And afterwards, we'll go to Florida."

"Bastard," Rodney whispered.

"Give me a chance, Rodney, please. Let me try everything."

Rodney rolled away. "Fine," he said, getting up and fleeing blindly toward the bathroom, "Whatever."

John was nice, but completely intractable. Rodney...was unsure. Maybe he should feel patronized. Maybe. Maybe--what? He didn't know.

During the day Monday and Tuesday, Rodney worked on Mal's curtain wall. In the evenings, after everyone left, he and John worked on the coliseum. As far as the glass design went, 'working' was code for zoning on pieces of paper as he tried to come up with a workable design. Rodney could think of five ways to actually do it, but all of them offended his sense of efficiency. John sat quietly in the corner amusing himself with something or other. On Tuesday, he sat down with the office manager and worked out Rodney's schedule so that he could disappear for a few days on a medical vacation. "All set," he said as he came back. "We leave a week from today."

Rodney looked up from the blank paper. "You got an appointment already? Lucky me." He glanced down at the paper. It had a series of thin, horizontal lines on it. He didn't remember drawing them.

"Getting anywhere?"

Rodney sighed. "No." He turned the page upside down. It didn't stimulate a brilliant idea.

"Did you do that free-hand?" John asked.

"Genius," Rodney muttered, wadding the paper into a ball. "I can draw a straight line. Wheee."

"Look, you obviously don't like the project. Are you sure you *can*--"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "This isn't art. It's engineering. I don't have to *like* anything."

"So what's the problem?"

"They're not doing it because it's the best design for their purpose. It's not about acoustics or light or even mood. They're doing this because it's expensive and flashy and pointless and they're making a statement about having wealth to waste on extravagance." Rodney stood up. "I need more paper," he said.

It felt good to stretch his legs, he thought as he walked to the supply room. Maybe John had a point about breaks. Away from the white noise generator in his office, though, he could hear things he didn't want to. Two of the senior partners were arguing. In the little kitchen, one of the junior associates (male, Blake? Baker?) was trying to convince one of the other junior associates (female, Wallis? Willis?) that, yes, he really was a feminist and was completely sympathetic to the barriers faced by women even in this day and age. Somewhere Rodney couldn't locate, the office manager was saying, "Yes, he's gorgeous, but there's no point in getting to like him. Rodney McKay has chased nice guides off before. This one won't last six months."

One of the secretaries answered her. "Oh, I don't know. This one seems to like him."

Rodney tripped over his feet because he'd stopped paying attention to the location of the floor. He turned around and headed back the way he'd come, practically running. He didn't stop until he was standing directly over John. John looked up. "I've never worked with a sentinel in an office job before. I'm thinking of learning to knit."

"Do you like me?" Rodney asked, though John had told him so. He couldn't get his mind around the answer. He didn't understand. He couldn't--

The scent that rose suddenly was a much better answer than words. It went straight to Rodney's hindbrain. It clouded his thinking and his speech center and turned his body to water.

His eyes were still seeing John, who was near and solid and looking up at him. John smiled. "No," he said. "I think maybe 'like' isn't the word."

Rodney leaned down and kissed him. It was the Parthenon, Rodney thought. He began to shake.

John caught Rodney as he fell, eased him to his knees, kissing all the while. "Wonderful, wonderful," John muttered between kisses. Or perhaps it was just telepathy directly to Rodney's mind.

Rodney pulled back, gasping. "Home. We have to go home."

John blinked. He looked remarkably alert and present. He patted Rodney's cheek. "Right. You're sick. I need to take you home."

Rodney's jaw dropped. "I'm not sick. You need to take me home so I can lick you all over."

John laughed. "I think Jane doesn't need to know that."

***

Rodney was dimly aware that he was zoned, and it wasn't the sort of zone that let him function. It wasn't useful, like listening to girders or getting lost in mathematics. "Are you going to stop making that smell?" Rodney managed to ask. John was taking off Rodney's clothes, because Rodney couldn't properly command his fingers.

"It's a brain chemistry thing. I can't control it. Hormones and pheromones. You don't believe in it." John tossed Rodney's undershirt across the room and laid a trail of kisses across his back. "You'll start to habituate to the scent in a few days. Eventually, I won't make it as strong anyway."

The thought *hurt* with an almost physical pain. "Because you'll stop loving me?"

"No, because....Actually, I think we don't know yet. It just does. Maybe my brain will get used to loving you." The scent had changed Rodney's skin somehow. John's hands sliding over Rodney's shoulders, belly--it felt impossibly good, sweet, dizzying....

Skin wasn't supposed to feel good. Rodney normally only noticed it when it itched or burned or felt raw. It was hard to think--or remember back past this one moment--but possibly, these last few days, possibly Rodney's skin hadn't been a problem.

"Rodney, you have to tell me what to do, what you need here."

"You're supposed to know," Rodney mumbled. "Guide."

"Yeah. And the book says you shouldn't be doing this with anybody you've known less then six weeks. Your body hasn't acclimated to mine. I should be--I might be--an irritant or something."

Rodney realized he was struggling with John's shirt. He just couldn't get passed it. Or around it. Or into it. He seized and ripped, and there at last was skin. Rodney ran his tongue over the sweet, warm expanse. It tasted better than it smelled. "What idiot wrote the book?" he said, words muffled against warm skin.

John's lips were on Rodney's neck. The tip of his tongue teased just behind Rodney's left ear. An irritant or something? Maybe, but-- Normally, the ideal of somebody else's spit on him would have been a little ugly, yeah, but no, no, this was wonderful, John's warmth, John's damp, John's hands spreading a fire of pleasure everywhere.

"I would have waited," John was whispering. "I was going to. I could have."

"Shut up, shut up." Need was very nearly pain now, very nearly unbearable. Rodney had never been so overwhelmed, so out of control without being very close to dying. He should be terrified-- "Touch me. Please, please."

He didn't lose consciousness. He wasn't sure afterwards--dazed, emptied, exhausted, consumed--what he'd been conscious *of*, but he hadn't passed out. He sort of remembered a fire in his veins. And thinking that his body was melting. And begging. He had begged out loud. "We have to do it again," he said thickly.

He heard John's smile. "Safe bet that we will...."

"No, I mean--I wasn't paying attention properly the first time. I can't remember, I couldn't process it," Rodney shut his mouth, belatedly hearing how stupid he sounded.

"Practice," John teased gently. He reached out and pulled up the sheet, but Rodney shoved it away as soon as it touched him. He was a little cold, but unlike John's skin, the sheet wasn't soft and warm. He shifted so that more of him was on John and not on the utter waste of very expensive and hypoallergenicly cleaned sheet.

"Huh," Rodney said after a while.

"What?" John asked, smoothing his hair.

"I should be really upset right now." Rodney felt tired, but not sleepy. And not unhappy or worried at all.

A soft smile against the top of Rodney's head. "Yeah. I can see where really good sex could be upsetting."

"We're involved now," Rodney said heavily. "And I'm...not easy to get along with. I could hurt your feelings tomorrow and you could, you know, get mad and wash my sheets in Tide or something."

"Believe it or not, I do have some impulse control."

"You could leave me. Or die tomorrow. I don't know how I could go back to the way things were before. Maybe I couldn't. That should scare the shit out of me."

"I'm not going to die tomorrow."

"You can't promise that."

John shifted under him, sighing. "No, I can't. I can't promise. But, really, it's not likely, is it? I'm not sick. You'd know. One of the fringe benefits of being a guide; cancer or high blood pressure or something can't sneak up on you."

"Freak accident," Rodney said. "A meteor could drop on you tomorrow. Squish."

"Right? And who will be standing right next to me when it hits? If I die tomorrow in a freak accident, one in a million chance, lightening strike, who could have guessed--you will probably not have to worry about outliving me, Rodney. To be really blunt."

Rodney laughed despite himself. But part of what he was laughing at was his own profound and unexpected betrayal. "Oh, my god. I can't protect myself from you at all. I trust you. I'd let you do anything. I don't even mind the meteor idea. I've lost my mind."

John held him tightly. "Yeah. We sort of need to talk about that." He paused. "There are things I need to know. About the way you protect yourself. Your medical file starts eleven years ago when you started college in Ohio. I really need to know about, well, before. Don't you think?"

"You want to know about my trust issues. I've had this conversation before."

"Not with me," John coaxed.

Rodney was very quickly getting more grounded then he wanted to be. He lifted his head and met John's gaze solemnly. "You're thinking I was abused or something. It wasn't like that. My parents weren't cruel. They were just really ignorant."

John waited quietly. Rodney considered pulling away and wrapping himself in the rough sheet. Instead he said, "I came on line just before I turned seven. Apparently, before that, I was an okay kid. Picky, you know. But smart and friendly. Cute."

"And then you changed."

"I got cranky. I stopped eating. And sleeping. I cried for no reason. I got stupid."

That last was the hardest part to say out loud, and John, naturally, picked it up. "How did you get stupid?"

"I was put into remedial math and reading. I couldn't, um, make out the characters on the page."

"Ah," John said.

"I didn't get the sentinel diagnosis until I was ten. A doctor asked me a lot of questions about what I was hearing and seeing and explained that my brain was different....And that was a huge help. Once I realized that the words were disappearing because my perception was switching levels, I just, I got a hold of it and made my perception pay attention."

"That's impressive," John whispered. "Learning to alter focus without a guide."

"I know that now."

"What about your health?"

"They didn't understand. I'm not making excuses. They were stupid and shortsighted. But it wasn't malicious. It's hard, taking care of a sentinel."

John didn't say anything.

"Bleach," Rodney whispered. "Ammonia. Bug spray. Fabric softener. Air fresheners." Rodney could feel himself tensing. He pushed his face into John's shoulder and tried to relax his muscles.

John coaxed gently, "Neurological symptoms?"

"No. Respiratory, mainly. Worst in the winter, when we kept all the windows shut. Sometimes it felt like I was drowning. I couldn't cough enough...."

"It's all right," John said gently. "We can talk about this later."

Rodney never wanted to talk about this again. Best to be done. "When I was in high school, I started cleaning things myself. I figured out what was safe. And the library had some books. I did the laundry. I spent as much time away from home as I could. I tried not to think about it."

"And it got better," John whispered.

"It got a lot better. Except in my senior year, I was...the doctor said I had Michelson's"

John went very still. His scent turned a little sour. And yes, okay, a dozen years later that was gratifying, because Rodney's parents had never smelled this upset. They hadn't understood where Michelson's came from or what it meant, so they'd never really believed that it was dangerous or miserable. "It's not in your file."

"Michelson's is usually an environmental disorder. Allergic toxemia. I changed environments."

"Better research links Michelson's to stress. It's not usual, though, to find college as the less stressful environment."

"They weren't guides. They weren't even good parents. But they weren't deliberately cruel."

"You're trying to forgive them," John said.

"Bernice--that was about five guides back--said that unresolved anger causes elevated cortisol. But I'm not a very forgiving person."

"Don't worry about it," John whispered. "It's not worth the effort. I certainly won't be forgiving them very soon."

"Forget them," Rodney agreed thinly.

"Tell me something I can use. When did the episodes start?"

"In the beginning. When I was seven or eight. It was just really bad itching at first, though. Chain welts and burning. It didn't get life-threatening until my second year in college. I was on a practicum in Pittsburg. It wasn't very clean."

John was quiet for a long time. Finally he said, "I can't promise that I won't ever make mistakes, but Sweetheart, I'm not ignorant. And I'm not so lazy or so selfish or so disinterested that," he stopped suddenly, working his jaw silently and breathing through his nose.

Rodney closed his eyes. "John, sentinels were never meant to live in cities. Even if my parents had done better, they, uh, they could never have done *enough*. I know you're going to do your best, but--"

"No, no. You know how much of this is attitude. Do not sabotage us before we even get started." Then, more softly, "Please."

"We'll do it your way," Rodney whispered. "And I've never said that to anybody, ever, so consider yourself special." He was caving completely, he knew that. And he knew that the reason he didn't normally cave was that it wasn't *safe*. All his independence and self reliance and distrust seemed to have evaporated. Probably, this wouldn't end well....

Rodney spent the rest of the week in a happy haze he blamed on plentiful and delightful sex. Aside from the sex, he supposed he had a good week. On Thursday morning he sat bolt upright at four am knowing how to cut twenty percent of the weight of Malcolm's curtain wall, and at the same time make the lattice nearly invisible. He worked from home that day, dressed in a torn tee-shirt and boxers and fed peanut butter on whole wheat sandwiches every few hours by John. By the time John made him stop for dinner, he had a basic plan ready for Malcolm's input (by 'input,' Rodney meant 'humble awe').

He didn't make as much progress on the stadium, unless by progress he included a long list of things that *didn't* appear to be the problem. In the happy haze of post-coital bliss, though, Rodney couldn't find it in himself to be frustrated about that.

He even almost managed to ignore the out of town trip that loomed closer on the horizon every day. The air travel, he could handle that. Not always pleasant (frequently not pleasant) but predictable and not horrible. After that, though, was a doctor visit. John tried to be reassuring, saying things like, "It won't take as long as you think," and "Dr. Beckett doesn't do a lot of invasive testing," and "He has really good ideas." John was expecting that his miracle worker would come up with something useful. Rodney liked John hopeful. He wasn't looking forward to the likelihood of the miracle worker bursting that bubble.

And then they were moving on to Florida. The site in Tampa hadn't been very good for Rodney lately. Maybe--even probably--no one was actually deliberately exposing Rodney to anything. Probably, the site was fine and nobody was trying to keep him from noticing something untoward. Probably. Really.

But John didn't think so. And even if nothing deliberate was being done--surely, nobody was really trying to poison him--Rodney had had a lot of trouble at the site and with documents from the general contractor. Accident or not, there might be something dangerous there.

Really, though, all that was easy not to think about when the distraction of John's smell and taste and warmth was so lovely. Rodney managed to push it out of his mind right up until the moment when they pulled the rental car into the large parking area in front of a large stone farmhouse of no particular genera. "This doesn't look like the hospice," Rodney said suspiciously.

"No. Sam keeps an office in town. He sees a number of out-patients. It's less stressful to do it here."

The parking area wasn't paved. The door was...just an old house door. When they walked in...there was a small wooden entry area that opened into a former parlor that had been transformed into a small, overly quaint waiting room. "I'm impressed with the state of the art facility," Rodney muttered pointedly.

A short, middle aged man came out of one of the doors opening into the waiting room. The little man grinned at John and walked right forward and hugged him in a way that showed absolutely no respect for John's personal space or dignity. "I thought you were done with Vermont, Johnny-boy."

"Wait, Al. Next time I'll get you to come visit me." He grinned and stepped back. "Rodney, this is Al Calavicci, Sam's guide."

"Nice to meet you," Rodney said, offering his hand mainly so that Al would step away from John (and really, this jealous streak Rodney was discovering wasn't nice). "I was just admiring your office park."

And then a sentinel stepped into the hall behind them and Rodney's jealous streak entered completely new territory. This new sentinel--my god, the doctor?--was beautiful. An open, cheerful face was made completely unforgivable by a thick head of *bouncy* hair, a firm jaw, and eyes that were actually--god damn it--pretty.

John slid an arm around Rodney's waist. "It won't be so bad. Really. He's the best. He'll help us."

The beautiful sentinel stepped forward and held out his hand. "I'm Dr. Beckett, but we aren't very formal here. You can call me 'Sam' if I can call you 'Rodney.'"

"Sure, fine, whatever," Rodney said.

It was like no examining room Rodney had ever seen. It was clean, he'd concede that. The tile floor had been scrubbed with vinegar and rinsed thoroughly within the last day. There were cotton rugs on the floor, though. Clean, as far as Rodney could tell, but his sense of smell wasn't far beyond the normal. The walls were old fashioned plaster and lathe. The plaster was tinted, so there was no paint. It was an awful lot of trouble to go to for a clinic, even more expensive than the usually non-reactive wallboard you usually saw in health care facilities meant for sentinels. There was a window with cotton curtains rather than blinds. There was no exam table, but rather a chaise lounge draped in silk.

It was very unprofessional. Possibly flakey, but more likely just patronizing. Good old "Sam" was trying to make his patients feel at ease. Rodney snapped his fingers and held his hand out for the little paper gown.

"What?" John asked.

"I'm not going to ask you to change, Rodney," Sam said.

Rodney rolled his eyes at John. "So you're not even going to examine me?"

"Eventually. But first we should talk. And the hospital gown isn't to make things convenient for you. It's to make things convenient for me. I'm not in a hurry." He smiled. "Have a seat."

He didn't point to the chairs, so Rodney sat on the chaise. Sam sat beside him. "The model I'm using--"

"Just get started. I don't need to understand whatever voodoo you're using." At John's dark look he added, "Please."

Sam, apparently unfazed, stood up. "Extend your arms, no, to the sides. Thank you." He touched Rodney's shoulders lightly, with just the tips of his fingers. "Right handed. Blood pressure a little higher than we'd like. You're a little dehydrated."

"I don't like to drink when I fly. I hate using the bathroom on the plane."

"Rodney I have to ask you a question before this goes any further. Do you want John here for this, or would you rather he wait outside?"

Rodney's mouth dropped open in outrage. For a doctor to even try to examine a sentinel without his guide present was a violation of the most basic standards of patient rights.

John dropped a hand onto Rodney's thigh. "No," he said softly. "He's not trying to separate us. He's afraid there may be some things you're uncomfortable talking about in front of me."

"*You* decide if he's here or not," Sam said.

"Of course he's here. If you think I'm going to let some strange quack touch me--"

"Is it a problem for strange people to touch you?" the doctor asked, his hand hovering over Rodney's arm.

"Most sentinels think so," Rodney snapped.

"Rodney?" John asked very quietly. "Think about the question. Do you have a problem with people touching you?"

Rodney opened his mouth and stumbled as he realized that he hadn't given any thought to it, didn't know the answer, couldn't . "No. No, people don't touch me. It's not a problem."

"The idea of touching?"

"No, touching is okay."

"What about doctors? Are we a problem?"

His hand was hovering over Rodney's arm still. He realized that it was a very polite question. Not medically useful, per se, but kindly meant, obviously. "No. I'm not fond of tests, but doctors...aren't a problem."

The hand floated down, adjusted Rodney's position so that one arm was up, and one was down, and the pretty sentinel's gentle hand rested lightly on Rodney's arm. "Is there any particular profession that is a problem--?"

"Why are you asking these questions? Shouldn't you be asking me something useful, like 'what are my sensitivities?' or 'am I taking any medication?' or something?"

He leaned over Rodney and whispered, "I've already read your file. How about I ask you questions I don't already know the answers to?"

"Fine."

"In the last year, you've had over a dozen severe reactions with no identifiable trigger."

Rodney lifted his chin slightly. "Are you saying I'm imagining it?"

Unfortunately, the doctor didn't take offence and leave in a huff. "I'm asking if you have a suspicion you can't prove."

"John thinks someone I work with is trying to...keep me from costing them a lot of money."

"By deliberately exposing you to things that will make you sick."

"Yes."

"John thinks. You don't?"

Rodney sighed. "I really don't see any point in looking for a complicated answer here. The simple answer works fine. There is no safe environment. You can't control all the factors."

"You want to, though. Control all the factors."

"I've tried it. It doesn't work. My body--" Rodney stopped and looked away.

"What about your body?"

Rodney didn't answer.

Sam switched arms. "Why are you here?"

"John asked me to come."

"And you're putting up with being pawed by a quack because John asked you to?" Harsh words, still so gently asked.

"John loves me," Rodney said, because it was the answer he had to think least about.

"Who else loves you?"

Rodney flinched against the light hand on his arm, and suddenly he realized what was happening. He was being given a psych exam. Unlike the standard session, though, Rodney wasn't permitted to simply answer the questions and play the verbal games. Dr. Beckett was asking Rodney questions and reading the answers off Rodney's body. It didn't matter what Rodney wanted to say, or what he wanted to keep secret.

Even as Rodney accepted the discovery, the doctor confirmed it. "You don't have to tell me. Let's talk about something else. How are you sleeping?"

"I get enough sleep."

***

When it was over Rodney looked at his watch. Twenty minutes. Just twenty minutes.

It was the longest twenty minutes of his life, including the time he was in an ambulance stuck behind a seven car pile-up trying to breathe through a tube down his throat because the antihistamines hadn't worked. He'd been sedated then. And nobody had been asking him questions about his parents.

When it was over, John moved to sit on the lounger beside him and put an arm around Rodney's shoulders. "What do you think?"

"I think you're right," Sam said, backing off from them and going to stand by the window. "He's not hysterical."

Rodney frowned at John. "Why are you not happy to hear this?" he asked irritably.

"He means you're fragile, Rodney."

"You already knew that," he snarled.

"I was really hoping I was wrong," John whispered. "If this was about your control or stress, or trauma there would be a lot more we could do."

"John," Sam said sharply. "There is plenty you can do."

"I want you to use the shortcuts, Sam."

The doctor nodded. "Rodney, the shortcuts involve subliminal reprogramming to block your physiological response to anxiety and tension. It'll take some of the stress off your body."

"So--what? You want to hypnotize me?" Rodney glanced at John anxiously. He really hoped John wouldn't ask for that. It was more autonomy than he wanted to give up. By a lot.

"No. You'll be aware the whole time. I'll just stand here holding your hand and talking to you."

"Rodney. Your brain can moderate the way your body responds to environmental insults. And Sam is very good at helping with this."

So Sam pulled up a chair and held Rodney's hand, coaxing him to talk about things he enjoyed, things that were terrible, things that were relaxing. And then it was over. Apparently. The doctor went to a sink in the corner and washed his hands as though he'd completed a real examination. "I was hoping you'd stay for lunch. Al made ham salad. Actually, it's tofu, but it's better than actual ham."

When the little clinic was about a mile behind them, Rodney said, "At least tell me it was a congenial break-up. The man just treated me. If he's still mad at you because you slept around on him or dumped him or something, I'm really screwed here."

"There wasn't a break-up. We were never committed. Or even exclusive. It wasn't about that."

Rodney's mouth went dry. "Is-is that how you prefer things?"

John thought for a moment. "It was good at the time. It was a couple of years ago. I was very uptight then. I was still carrying a lot of Air Force baggage."

"Because you couldn't do what you really wanted to do?" Rodney asked carefully.

"What? Oh, you mean flying? No. By the time I moved up here for my practicum I loved being a guide. I was really into the whole thing. No. I...started my guide training in Virginia, at the federal guide school. They had a weird approach to things. It gave me some bad habits, in the way I thought about things. Not just sentinels, my relationships with other people."

"Oh."

"Rodney, don't worry about it. When I was seeing Sam, he was seeing two other people and getting his deepest emotional needs met by his guide. He doesn't have any jealousy to vent on you. Anyway, if we hadn't been friends, I could never have gotten you an appointment so quickly."

John had made reservations at a "sentinel friendly" bed and breakfast outside of town. "It's still early," Rodney said as he set the suitcase on the dresser. "We could have made it to Tampa tonight."

"Right," John said. "Because what I really want is to rush you back and forth across the country until you collapse from exhaustion." He glanced at Rodney narrowly. "I know you hate the idea of being in Vermont. You think it's where sentinels come to die. They come here because it's a very nice place. And a lot of them go home healthy." He came over and slid an arm around Rodney's waist. "We'll go for a walk, enjoy having hills and trees. You'll learn to like it."

"Why would I want to learn to like it?"

John shrugged. "Because you're coming back in three months for a check-up?"

"Oh." Rodney pulled free of John's hands and sat down on the bed. "Tell me about these 'short cuts.' What do they do?"

John came over and took Rodney's left hand. He pressed gently into the dent between the joints of the first and second fingers. "What do you feel?"

"Your finger's touching me?" Rodney laughed, "Do you want me to estimate foot-pounds or something? Because I can."

"Not 'what does your hand feel?' 'how do you feel?'"

"Kind of silly, actually." Rodney blinked. "Really relaxed."

"That's what a shortcut is. He installed some new habits."

The feeling of wellbeing faded abruptly. Rodney snatched his hand away. "He gave you control over my mind? He did. He gave you control over my mind."

"You can do it, too. If you touch the cues. And if you fight it, you can override the cue. And it will all extinguish in a couple of months anyway."

"They why--"

John sat heavily on the bed and buried his face in his hands. "Because this past year you've been having life-threatening emergencies almost once a week. Because you're habituating to the drugs, which means we have to change the kit again soon, and that's dangerous. Because you're carrying too much damn cortisone in your system, and that's not safe either, and it's screwing up your immune system. Because it's going to take *time* for you to learn the best ways to short-circuit an episode yourself, and they're not easy. And in the mean time--"

"In the mean time, you need a way to make sure I don't drop dead. The short term solution. I get it."

"The long-term solutions are coming."

"What will the long-term solutions be?"

"You learn to be aware of the dangerous parts of your environment. Right now, you ignore the things that might hurt you--"

"Because I project!"

"Right. But that means you don't notice and remove yourself from dangerous situations. And that's the easy part. The hard part is going to be separating your emotional state from your physiological responses. And direct your 'involuntary' nervous system. Anybody can learn to do this, by the way, but it takes years."

Rodney looked at John, who was apparently ready to invest years into a very sketchy project. "I guess there's not much, um, job security in working for a fragile sentinel."

"There's no point in looking for guarantees about anything. But I guess you could say I have a personal investment in keeping you alive."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Come outside with me. Let's take a walk. Relax a bit, we've got air travel again tomorrow."

***  
It was raining when the plane landed in Tampa. There was a line for the rental car. Road construction narrowed the lane heading out of the airport.

Rodney would have been grumpy and stressed, but he'd spent the entire flight asleep, cuddled against John's shoulder. John had smelled very good, and his strong heart had drowned out the whine of the engines.

So when John offered to head straight to the hotel and put off the construction site until tomorrow, Rodney waved his hand negligently and opted for getting right to work. He felt fine. The rain had eased off to a drizzle.

The parking area was graveled, but the work site itself was full of churned mud. Rodney picked his way through the sandy, sloshy muck and was grateful that he hadn't worn his good shoes. As it was, his sneakers would never be the same.

They circled around to the west entrance, since most of the activity was on the south side. Rodney wasn't concealing his presence, but the longer he could put off being noticed, the more time he'd have to work uninterrupted.

"You know," John said, "We don't have to hurry, here. We could take the rest of today off. See a movie? Go out for sushi?"

"You don't have to be dry to be an engineer." At the chain link fence the sandy mud gave way to a churned clay. It splashed a little as they walked, clinging in spots to the hems of their pants. Yuck. And the smell--

Rodney jumped back, tripped over John, found himself clinging to the fence to keep from falling. He tried to think how to get around the fence, how to run *away* to evade the smell. His stomach heaved and knotted, and in a wash of acid, the chicken he'd had on the plane spilled out onto the mud.

"Rodney? What's wrong?"

Rodney pushed harder, his guts trying to squeeze out every last gram of bile. Emptied, though, he gasped and that was a mistake. His mouth and nose flooded with an oily mist. His stomach heaved again.

"Easy. All right." John's arms took Rodney's weight. "Easy, let's get you down."

John meant to lower Rodney onto the ground, to set him in that mud. Panicked, Rodney lurched toward the opening in the fence, choking, "No, god, run--"

Somehow, John got Rodney back in the car. He didn't ask any questions, he just put distance between them and the site. When they were about a mile away, he pulled into a Burger King parking lot and dug around for the map included by the rental company. "Do I need to be looking for a hospital?"

Rodney opened his door and leaned out, sucking in cool, damp air.

John came around and squatted beside Rodney's knees. "Talk to me, Sweetheart," John said softly. He was carrying the backpack. He checked Rodney's arms and eyes and then offered him a bottle of water. "What happened?"

Rodney rinsed and spit, carefully not splashing John, who was very close. "Well, the good news is, nobody's trying to poison me."

"Okay. That's good news. I, ah, think there's bad news though? I mean the turning green and puking is kind of a hint."

Rodney looked down at his sneakers. He toed them off and let them drop to the blacktop.

"Rodney?" John coaxed. "I've never actually seen anybody turn green before. I thought it was a euphemism. Can you understand what I'm saying?"

"We just built our stadium on a toxic waste site." Rodney laughed weakly. "They've spent, oh, four or five million dollars already. Crap. I think we're about to be fired. Because, really, who is going to employ a sentinel who didn't notice a gigantic, honking, toxic waste dump?"

"We have to get a sample tested," John said. "Try to figure out what long term exposure might have done to you. Fuck, Rodney. I'd almost rather somebody'd been lacing the coffee with lemon peel."

"I was never here more than a couple of days at a time. You don't think--"

Before the panicked thought could form, John took Rodney's left hand and pushed his thumb into the joint between the first and second knuckles. Sighing, Rodney leaned forward and rested his forehead on John's shoulder. "I probably could have smelled it all along, if I'd been paying attention. Even *I* would fire me."

"Your PhD is in engineering, not human ecology or chemistry. You were hired to keep the building from falling down." He brightened suddenly. "Anyway, you're about to become a famous corporate whistle-blower. Whoever sold the property to the city is probably in for a big law suit."

"Lovely," Rodney grunted. "Take off your shoes."

"What?"

"Your shoes. We're both covered in mud. I'd toss my pants right now, but I don't know how we'd check into the hotel half-naked."

John hugged him hard, nearly spilling the water. He was making the smell that meant Rodney was on his mind. In a good way. He planted a kiss on Rodney's temple and then freed himself and removed his shoes. Tidily, he dropped both his own and Rodney's in the garbage can outside the drive-through.

In the hotel room, John washed his hands and swiftly changed the sheets. Rodney, who had gone straight to the shower, toppled naked and steaming onto the bed. Probably he should be panicking and counting up all the hours he'd spent exposed to whatever was in the ground in the construction site. 'Three hundred and twelve' his brain whispered, but Rodney was too exhausted to get worked up about it. It hadn't been all the same, anyway: inside the basement with the air stagnant, that had probably been the worst. But the day he'd looked at the site *before* they'd ripped the ground open with backhoes had probably been perfectly safe. Anyway, he didn't know what the exposure was *to*. What did he know about biohazards?

John came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and asked, "Am I clean enough?"

"You're fine," Rodney said. And, "That was quick."

John answered too casually, "I missed you," and sat on the bed. Casually (still) he laid a hand on Rodney's chest. "You're pretty calm about all this."

"It's a little late to be panicking now. Anyway, I feel like crap from throwing up."

John disappeared and returned a moment later with a piece of crystallized ginger. "Here, suck on this, and I'll order up some dinner."

After John called room service, he dug Rodney's dayplanner out of the backpack and called Wayne Edwards. "We've just come from the Tampa site," he said into the phone. "I know, but we were in the neighborhood. I talked Rodney into Disney." He paused. "There's a problem. Rodney thinks the site is contaminated."

"'Rodney thinks,'" Rodney growled.

John patted Rodney on the head quellingly. "No, he's not sure what it is."

"It's not petrochemical," Rodney muttered. "Did the government ever test nerve gas there?"

"Whatever it is, there's a lot of it....Yes, it definitely needs to be looked at by a professional, but we didn't know what the procedure was. Do we talk to the owner before or after we have an analysis in hand?" Rodney could hear the strain in Edwards' voice as he answered, but he didn't bother to try to make out the words. "Right. Yeah....I wish we had more details....You're welcome."

"You know," Rodney said as John hung up. "I don't pay you nearly enough."

John laughed and stretched out beside him. "You can make it up in trade later."

Rodney laughed. He'd been thinking, maybe, of buying John a car. He rolled over and laid his head on John's shoulder. "I still haven't figured out what was wrong with the site."

"Well, you're not going back. It may not matter anyway. Depending what kind of cesspool the project is sitting on it may never get finished."

Rodney closed his eyes so that he wouldn't see John's face and said, "This is my fault, you know. I really should have noticed sooner...."

"Well. It would have been better for everyone if you had identified the problem sooner. But it wasn't what you were hired for. And you didn't miss it because you were careless. You were just...Look, the best estimate right now is the senses of a healthy human can take in something like four billion bites of information per second. The limitation is what the brain can process. *I* can process about two thousand bites a second. You can probably handle--oh, fifty thousand? Eighty thousand? But only if you're, you know, okay."

"Only eighty thousand?" Rodney felt faintly insulted.

"I'm guessing. Anyway, we'll test you again in a few months. We can probably get your scores up."

"My scores are respectable. And anyway--oh. You're teasing me. Well, stop it. And wake me up when the food comes." Rodney turned his face into John's shoulder and fell asleep.


	2. Cascade, Washington 1990

Two hundred completed surveys. Thirty extended interviews. Participant observation--Jack wished he had the time to do all the research that way. He wished enough sentinels lived in the Cascade area to make it feasible. He wished he had a hell of a lot more stamina.

Mike had been generous, letting Jack observe him at home. The executive chef at 'Chez Alain' had let him watch her at work for entire shift. He'd spent a week at Saint Sebastian's (observing the brothers, not the guests). He'd driven down to Portland and spent a couple of days watching a sentinel oceanographer and his partner. Some days he felt almost like an ethnographer rather than a guide. It wasn't nearly as much as he would have liked, these few, deep case studies.

John Sheppard and Rodney McKay were a particular prize. They both liked to talk. Rodney--an interviewer's dream--didn't seem to edit his content, and John was very astute. They both thought Jack's research was a wonderful idea. Conveniently operating out of Rainier, they'd been very open about their private lives. They had let Jack observe them doing everyday things like shopping and taking the cat to the vet. They presented a precious opportunity.

In the elevator, Jack checked his tape recorder and his notebook. He passed his hands over them, but didn't take them out. Seeing them too soon seemed to make Rodney nervous.

John was scowling when he opened the door. "Can I offer you some coffee?" he asked. "Rodney still isn't dressed. This might take a while."

"Ah...?" Jack hesitated. Rodney was usually very punctual.

"He's dragging his feet, hoping we'll miss the appointment. He's desperately afraid of the eye doctor."

"I heard that," floated down the hall. "And I am not. I just don't need one."

John rolled his eyes and motioned Jack to follow him into the kitchen. The problem with John was that he was very credible, and Jack liked him. Actually, Jack liked him a lot more than anyone should like a research subject who was married anyway, but he could easily compartmentalize and ignore that. But John was charming and direct and articulate. The temptation was to believe what he said, without reading between the lines or looking for all the hidden fears and external pressures. It would be very easy to adopt the perspective John Sheppard presented. That was a problem because interview subjects frequently lied to themselves. Enough interviews, enough attention to details, to body language, and you could spot the cracks in the realities they built for themselves. Jack had gotten good at that with other people, but even after some eighty hours experience interviewing guides, he was still tempted to take John at his word, to believe that what he said was true.

"So, I'm guessing some eye-related trauma?" Jack probed.

For just a moment John let slip the anxiety he was trying to keep contained. "No, it's that little puff of air when they check the pressure."

Some of Jack's research subjects had been fragile sentinels, but still, this was new. "I don't understand."

John poured coffee, spoke quickly, didn't meet Jack's eyes. "It's just very--unpleasant. Last time, we tried the alternative. With the dye?" He waited for Jack's nod. "He couldn't see for three days. I never thought I'd hear the end of it."

"You still haven't," floated up from the back of the apartment.

"John," Jack said reluctantly, "I know I asked to observe you under stress, but if this is too much...." The priority wasn't the research. The sentinel was always most important. Jack didn't want to interfere or add to their stress. John, for once, wasn't so smooth and glib that his anxiety was hidden. Rodney was high maintenance at the best of times. He had a long list of sensitivities, some of them severe. He was very easily overwhelmed by pain. He had problems with his metabolism. His hearing was good enough that Jack couldn't express his worries out loud.

"We can manage. Having you there won't make any difference. Rodney doesn't care who sees him have a hissy fit."

"Where are my shoes?" Rodney called.

"In the closet. Someone must have put them away." He turned back to Jack. "I wish I had a better clue," he confessed. "There are so many things I don't know. And the things I do know--I've had to figure a lot of it out for myself. I didn't learn what I needed to in school."

Jack's hands itched for his pen. He didn't reach for it. He needed this crack in John. He needed to hear this. He couldn't afford to disrupt the moment. He kept his voice low, his hands still. The voice he used was one he hadn't needed since he'd been working as a guide himself. "Something Rodney needs that you didn't learn in school?"

John's stillness shattered. He tilted back his head and called, "How not to kill him."

"Ha, ha, very funny, no need to shout--"

John smiled. "He's the grumpiest, most impatient, most self-centered human being I have ever met."

Rodney's left hand came far enough into the hall to give them the bird.

Jack leaned forward. "So why haven't you? What's the thing you didn't learn?"

A softness descended over John's eyes. "How to love him," he whispered.

"You could say that louder. I didn't quiet catch it." Rodney groused loudly.

"We can get your ears checked, too," John answered.

Rodney came into the kitchen, large movements and sharp eyes creating a sense of presence. "Hi, Jack," he said casually. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah, but I think we may be too late. Even if we leave now--" Rodney shook his head, contrite but not--quite--embarrassed.

"That's all right," John said. "I lied about the time."

Rodney blanched. John took his wrist and led him back out into the living room. They were just outside of Jack's field of vision. He could see the single shadow they made on the wall, but not their expressions. He wondered what would get them through the next few hours: John's rough teasing and confidence? Physical comfort? Whatever promises John was making now?

On average, sentinels lived about twenty years fewer than everyone else in America. Rodney McKay gave every indication of being one of the sick ones that brought down the curve by dying very young. How his own personal stubbornness had gotten him to adulthood was a mystery itself, especially since he hadn't been raised in an environment adapted to his needs. That he was still alive, still working: amazing. That there had been only two hospitalizations in the last four years: a miracle.

John was doing something right.

John might not quite know what it was. In ten hours of interview, he hadn't revealed any shocking secrets or amazing techniques. Jack had to find out what it was, and he had to be sure. People were suffering and dying. Things must not go on as they were.

Not all cultures were screwing up their sentinels as badly as America was. Kerala, India, for example, had an average life span for sentinels that was three years higher than for everyone else. Even in third world poverty, their sentinels were amazingly healthy. And yes, part of that was wealth. They could afford better food, better housing, better health care than most of their neighbors and that made a difference. But wealth alone couldn't erase the effects of stress and pollution and uptake distortion. Part of their success had to lay in how sentinels were socialized or what their guides were doing or both.

Jack Kelso would never get those answers. With his 'employment' history, he'd never get a visa to India. He didn't speak the language. Or have the training for that kind of ethnography. And Kerala wasn't handicap-accessible anyway. Whatever miracle might be found there, it was out of Jack's reach.

Finally, from the other room, John called, "And now we really do have to go. Jack? Would you mind driving?" And that was kind of funny, since it was only in the third world that your informants traded information for a ride.

***

There was no waiting at the eye clinic. The ophthalmologist met them at the door and whisked them into a comfortable little room with a carpet and art on the walls. Rodney was visibly tense, but he kept his attention on John. It was clear he was only doing this for his guide. Only absolute love could have coaxed him into it, and only the fear of disappointing John was making Rodney follow through.

"We just did this," Rodney was protesting weakly. The doctor was trying to get him to take the eye shield. Rodney refused to touch it.

"Three years ago, babe," John murmured. "I'm right here."

Sentinel's feelings for the guide were the second tabulation Jack had run on the surveys. And there'd been a correlation. Sentinels who liked their guides tended to have higher job satisfaction, health, and general happiness, but it was a vague connection. The correlation wasn't direct. It helped, but it wasn't 'the' secret.

Finally, miserably, Rodney covered one eye and began to read letters off the chart projected on the far wall. John, sitting close, had Rodney's left hand in his lap. He was holding the hand carefully, shifting his grip...in a way that wasn't random or spontaneous. Jack didn't think John was hitting pressure points. There couldn't be so many Jack didn't know. Inputs idiosyncratic to Rodney? Some code between them? John was leaning close, stoking Rodney's palm, every once in a while whispering to him to breathe.

Nobody remembered the ethnographer in the corner, madly scribbling notes.

Rodney's vision--both eyes, unaided--was 60/20 for distance, which was at the low end of sentinel normal. For close work, he measured 7a in his right eye, and almost as good in his left. This meant he could make out complex detail in an image the width of a human hair.

"Look at my nose and tell me how many fingers I'm holding up--"

"Can you give us a minute, Doc?" John said.

"No, I'm fine," Rodney said breathlessly. "Keep going."

"You're hyperventilating, Sweetheart," John said softly. "Let's take a minute. Come on. Relax. Settle down for me."

That *ought* to be the answer. Right there. John was looking at Rodney like he was the beginning and end of the world. But guide attachment had been the first set of correlations Jack had looked at, and while it was clear that guides' strong affection for their charges was associated with higher mental and physical health, it wasn't predictive of success in any reliable way Jack had yet found.

That John and Rodney were involved--also not the answer. From the original survey, Jack had four married couples and nine sets of unmarried romantic partners. Thirteen was too small a sample for any meaningful statistical research, but two years before Henghist in New York had published a five year longitudinal study of married sentinel/guide pairs. Given the communications and interpersonal skills guides were trained with, you would expect these marriages to be more stable and 'happy' than others, and this was true, although not to the extent predicted. The stress of working together and coping with health issues put these marriages under more pressure than average, and a lot of them had suffered for that. And simply being married to the guide didn't confer (on average) a benefit on the sentinel. The only correlation lay between *good* marriages and healthy, well adjusted sentinels. If both parties were generally satisfied with their relationship and attached to each other, then sick days were cut in half and hospital visits by three-quarters. But even that was inconclusive. Cause and affect was a touchy determination. Perhaps sentinels who were easy to take care of had better marriages. Henghist was still working.

John was holding his partner against his chest. Silently, gently, he was stroking Rodney's hair. Rodney was pale, his lips pressed tightly together, his eyes closed. Jack realized that he would have no idea what to do with a sentinel in this state of distress. He'd never seen one this bad. If one of his partners had gone to pieces like this while they'd been working, Jack would have ordered sedation. And, yes, before he'd quit he'd realized that the system he worked under was far too hard on sentinels....but he still had never pictured this. And he wouldn't have had a clue how to deal with it.

Rodney let go and leaned back. "Let's get this over with," he said.

The doctor was quick and firm. He shined lights in Rodney's eyes, looked through different sets of tools. Rodney gripped John's hand and bore it.

A last device was swung around from the side. Rodney looked at it and clutched at the arm of his chair.

"Easy, it's all right. It won't actually hurt you."

"Bastard. Fine. You do it."

"You know I would," John whispered. "Glaucoma runs in your family. We have to check. It'll be over in a minute."

Rodney leaned forward into the machine while John kept a hand on his shoulder. The machine didn't make any sound Jack could hear, but Rodney shot back, gasping. He had his face in both hands.

"Did it hurt?" John asked softly.

Rodney cursed, still gasping, but moved toward John. "God. No. It doesn't hurt. Damn." He clapped a hand over his mouth, and for a moment Jack thought he'd be sick. He wasn't. Rodney pulled himself together and put his face back into the machine.

The second eye. Rodney jerked back and slumped, shaking. John pulled him into his arms. "All right. It's over. I've got you. I've got you."

"I know, I know," Rodney muttered. Jack went cold. Two hundred questionnaires, and all of them asking the wrong questions. What mattered wasn't that John loved Rodney. What mattered was that Rodney knew it. He looked at them clinging to each other. Rodney was covered in sweat, and he had gone from pale to cherry-red. John was stroking his hair and trying to calm him.

Jack tucked his notebook beside his leg and moved close enough to them to take charge of the backpack John had been carrying. His hands found a cold bottle; watered down sports drink with a core of ice still in the center. John took it gratefully. "Sip, Rodney," he said. "Easy. It's all right. I've got you. You need to calm down. All right? It's all over."

"Damn. I'm cold," Rodney muttered. "I'm cold, I'm cold. John, I'm sorry."

Jack's hands knotted to fists. Rodney, in pain, had a tendency to go into shock. The condition was rare, but progressive and very difficult to manage. This could be very bad.

Rodney, his face buried in John's neck, was apologizing over and over. John shook him gently. "Not your fault. This is a physiological thing. You can't help it."

The doctor--poor man, obviously he thought that finishing the exam would end his problems--turned to Jack. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked.

"John needs a few minutes," he said. "I believe you were warned that this would be touchy. None of this is unexpected." He couldn't really blame the man for looking horrified, though. His practice dealt with sentinels regularly, but not many were this fragile. "You're going to have to write down your results. Neither of them is in a state right now to understand your determinations."

"In and out, nice and slow." John's voice was so soft Jack could barely hear. "Just relax. You're not in trouble yet, not really. You're not hurt. It's all over."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not mad. Hey. It's all right. You're not in trouble yet. Your color is still good. Your heart is slowing down. It's going to be okay. Just relax, all right?"

"Wanna go home."

"Yeah, me too."

Jack had seen Rodney rip colleagues (both in his own department and in larger faculty committees) to pieces. He had seen Rodney go after administrators and leave them speechless and furious and huddling in shame. He was smarter than everybody else, and stronger than everybody else, and meaner than everybody else.

He had no defenses against John Sheppard. No part of himself he held back. That he could and would give himself over to John, seek comfort and protection and be sure he would find them--

Even after knowing them for months, Jack had not guessed that Rodney was capable of this. Or that he needed it so badly.

I've got you.

I know, I know.

Jack had been taught that attention to a sentinel's weakness reinforced it. He had been taught that rewarding fragility taught fragility, and so coddling wasn't doing a partner any favors. He'd been taught to extinguish attention-seeking behaviors. They were only a sign of immaturity, anyway.

Rodney's breathing had calmed.

John took out some baby wipes and cleaned the sweat and tears from Rodney's face. His eyes were still watering, but neither of them remarked on that. "Can you give me a body check, Sweetheart?"

"You're kidding, right?" Rodney growled. But, obediently, he closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders and he was still for almost a minute. "My blood pressure is a little high. My heart is a little more than ninety. I have a lot of adrenalin."

John was satisfied. He got Rodney up, collected the report from the doctor, and sent Jack out to get the car.

***

That night Jack typed up his field notes and then drifted around the house pretending to tidy up. His grant wouldn't cover designing a new survey, even a small one. And he needed a new survey. And he didn't have the skill to write the questions himself. His graduate methods course had been by correspondence. Jack was a guide. He'd never expected to be a real anthropologist.

Vernita Walker in Sociology had the training. She might do it in exchange for second author on one or two of the papers. The new section wouldn't be long. Fifteen or twenty questions should do it.

Jack had fully expected to learn that everything he'd been taught about sentinels and being a guide was wrong. The models of guiding he was most familiar with--the authoritarian guide and the clinical-detached guide--made a lot of problems worse not better. Jack had known that. He had seen that, up close, day in and day out for years. He had lived it, and then, after the injury, he had supervised it for more than a year.

He'd expected that sentinels needed more time for recreation, more affection, more freedom, more emotional support. But--

He hadn't been prepared for this. For seeing this, for knowing this.

His first sentinel, Aaron. Jack had worked with him for two years. Never once in those two years had Aaron showed any kind of fear. Never once. They'd worked together in three countries, shared motel rooms and tents and a horrible little cave on an island off the coast of Siberia.

A few years after they'd been reassigned and moved on, Aaron had died of a sudden heart attack. He'd been thirty-seven.

Aaron. Eddie. Robert. Marcia. Paul. Jack had touched them and encouraged them. He'd never clung to them and told them he'd loved them.

He had loved them. He'd loved Marcia and Paul and Eddie dearly. His partners. His comrades. People he'd trusted with his life, friends he would have died to protect. He'd even loved Robert--hard, cold, controlled Robert. Jack had admired that control. He had certainly not questioned it at the time.

When Marcia had groused about her headaches, Jack had started keeping records and charting changes in diet and weather and pollen and even gun cleaner until he'd found the cause. And that had been good. Better, certainly, than any of her previous guides had done. And he'd found the problem. But he should also have settled her head in his lap or drawn her a hot bath.

I've got you.

I know, I know.

Rodney was sure of John.

Jack's hands began to shake. In the first open-ended interview, John had said, "I love my job. I love working with him. I love seeing the buildings and the bridges and the amusement parks and the dams. It's all good." He'd said it cheerfully and without embarrassment. He loved his partner and he hadn't cared who knew. Rodney certainly did know.

Jack took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. Really, he had too much work to do to fall apart. He had to determine just how much advantage this sort of relationship gave to a sentinel. And he had to study how these relationships worked, how they might be cultivated, what kind of problems they were subject to and how the problems could be avoided. He didn't have the answer, not really. He had a new set of questions. Months of work before even preliminary findings....

For about a minute he tried very hard to collect himself and get back to work before giving up, laying his glasses in his lap, and weeping helplessly into his hands.


	3. Cascade, Washington 1992

The new workstudy was completely awed by the title "Graduate Director," although in the month Jack had had it, it had pretty much only meant "more paper work." She was young--freshman young. And away from home for the first time. And also, probably, a little freaked out by Jack's wheelchair.

When he got back from lunch, she came out from around the desk and met him at the elevator, scraps of Antho Department "while you were out" post-its in her hands. "Oh, Dr. Kelso!" She was, he saw, very nearly quivering. "You've been getting calls from AAD. They've been looking for you for half an hour, and they keep calling, and they say it's an emergency but their messages don't make any sense and, oh, Dr. Kelso, I didn't know what to tell them, there's nobody else here, Andrea is at lunch--"

"The School of Art, Architecture and Design," Jack said, his stomach sinking. He managed to snag one of the notes she was waving around. The only word his eyes registered was the one he was looking for: McKay. "If they call again, tell them I'm coming." He took the same elevator back down.

Art, Architecture, and Design was on the other side of the quad and uphill. Jack made the best speed he could, and arrived at the main doors out of breath and slightly sweaty. He was met by a student--by age a graduate student, and by the slightly geeky and deeply overstressed air, one of Rodney's--who knew him on sight and led him not to Rodney's office upstairs, but to a conference room on the first floor.

It was a nice conference room, all steel and glass, airy and large, fitting the extravagant new building AAD had built for itself. Jack recognized the secretary from the Engineering Department but not the older man in the suit. Both of them were talking quietly, heads together, as they stared at Rodney--

\--Who was curled up on the conference room's sparse couch. He was facing away from the door, talking quietly into a phone. Conscious, then. What the hell had happened? "Excuse me," Jack said.

Apparently the older man recognized him, although it wasn't mutual. "Dr. Kelso, I'm Dean Brown. Dr. McKay said you were filling in while John was away?"

"That's right. What happened?"

The man scowled, hesitating.

"I can show you the paper work." He reached for his wallet. "I have a card--"

"He was delivering a lecture on materials."

Jack nodded. He knew Rodney's schedule; not regular classes at the moment, but a series of special seminars. He couldn't picture any notable hazards. Rodney didn't eat or drink while he taught. It was a large lecture hall, so he shouldn't be close enough to students to be thrown off by personal hygiene products. And Rodney generally didn't have any problems in class anyway. "And--?"

"Apparently, a student backpack was partially blocking the walkway. Dr. McKay tripped and had a bad fall--"

And that was just not what Jack had expected. A fall? What the hell was Jack supposed to do with that? "Would you leave us alone?" he asked.

They shut the door as they went, and Jack came around the big conference table to the huddled, muttering form on the sofa. "Rodney?"

"Are those morons gone?"

"Yes." And this was good. Rodney was coherent.

"John wants to talk to you." He held out the phone.

"Kelso," Jack said, trying to sound calm.

"He says his arm hurts." John said without preamble. "How does it look?"

"Let me see," Jack urged, prodding Rodney until he turned and held out his right hand.

"Don't touch it," Rodney hissed. His color wasn't good, and his other hand was shaking.

"Well...it's swollen," Jack said into the phone. "It might just be a bad sprain." He tried to sound relaxed, but the truth was that with the problems Rodney had been having with even minor pain, even a bad sprain was dangerous.

"I'll get there as soon as I can get a flight. In the mean time..."

"Hospital," Jack said. Hospitals were at least as dangerous as pain, but Jack didn't have the resources to treat this alone.

"Jack." and John's voice broke on the word.

Jack could barely breathe for a moment himself, he'd gotten so caught in sympathetic fear. But no, no. Just no. Guides didn't panic. "We'll be fine," he said calmly. "We'll be waiting for you." Jack rang off and dialed 911, which took three steps because he didn't want to hunt up a real phone. He thought absently, as he omitted mentioning the injury and carefully emphasized the words "sentinel" and "shock," that he needed to address this in class, and probably several times. Communication along a chain of operators and dispatchers and EMS and partners got garbled, and besides, emergency officials tended to assume that everyone else was an idiot. You had to hold on to control from the start and not let the professionals get the idea that the problem was something simple that they didn't need to worry about.

Jack shut Rodney's phone (which the operator disapproved of, but Jack only said patiently, "No, I have to do my job now") and held out his hand. He waited for Rodney to nod before placing the hand on his chest, just above where he'd braced the injured arm. He winced theatrically. "Tripped, huh?"

Rodney exhaled sharply. "Fuck you. And, yes."

Moving slowly, Jack retrieved a tissue from his pocket and cleaned Rodney's face. "Can you move down so we can get your feet up on the arm of the sofa?"

"No. I can't move."

Jack looked around, but the sleek room didn't have anything he could use to elevate Rodney's feet.

"John shouldn't have gone," Rodney whispered.

"Yeah, court orders are a bitch that way," Jack said. "It cost you several thousand dollars in lawyers not to have to go, too."

"Ten," Rodney said. "Ten thousand dollars." A new set of tears escaped.

No, no, that wasn't good. "What was it you decided to do when he gets back?"

"There's a huge new water park in Oregon. At this time of year, the outdoor part is only open on weekends." Rodney gulped. "My new passion."

"Right. You mentioned after coming back from Texas last month. Historic inspection, right?" Rodney was shivering a little. Jack took off his sports coat and laid it over Rodney's torso.

"Yeah. The building wasn't salvageable. Complete mess. But they had this water park. It's like rollercoasters, but no engine." Rodney actually smiled a little. "No vibration, no noise, no cramped little seat...just gravity and your body."

"That sounds beautiful."

"I think it might kind of be a recreational drug."

"Rodney...can you do a body check for me? I'd really like to know your blood pressure right now?"

"No," Rodney said, in the tone of voice that said, 'idiot.' "That would involve paying attention to my body, and my body hurts."

"Okay. I won't push. Tell me...the specs on the new water park."

It was gibberish, of course. But just because engineering was another language, not because Rodney was at diminished consciousness, so Jack nodded and made occasional, encouraging noises.

When the paramedics arrived, Jack put on the stern look he used on undergraduates looking for extra credit and demanded to know if either of them had treated a sentinel before. They hadn't, but that was no worse than Jack had expected. "Then you are going to have to follow instructions very carefully. You, start a glucose IV and then get out whatever we'll need to brace that arm. You, start telling me what pain killers you're carrying--" and then Jack realized his mistake. He didn't have Rodney's records. He had a copy in his car and in his office and on his desk at home, but he hadn't taken anything with him to lunch but a tiny wirebound notebook. He hadn't even remembered that he'd need Rodney's records until this moment. He'd never worked with a partner who had so many lists that they couldn't be memorized.

"They put my briefcase on the table," Rodney said, his voice grinding a scathing criticism of Jack's mistake.

Feeling like shit, Jack retrieved the briefcase. In it was a full-sized three-ring notebook with section dividers. Jack's first and second choices for pain relief, the paramedics weren't carrying. Jack went with his third choice.

"That dose is too high," the earnest young man protested. "It'll depress his breathing."

Jack sighed. "No, it won't. And it probably won't even last half an hour. His metabolism has met this one before. The authority is mine. The legal liability is mine. Give the goddamn shot."

"Yeah. Go, Jack," Rodney panted, pressing himself into the upholstery as the second paramedic tried to coax him into submitting to having his blood pressure taken.

"No arguing from you, either," Jack said, only partly teasing. "As soon as you start to feel that shot, we need to stabilize that arm and move you."

"I've been thinking about that," Rodney said. He'd visibly gone downhill in the very short time Jack had been with him. The shaking was worse now, and his skin had gone from pale to pasty grey. His breathing was shallow and much faster than Jack liked. "I think I'll just wait here for John. That's...a better idea."

Jack shook his head.

"No. Really. I've...been thinking and...it's probably just a pulled muscle or something. I'll feel better in a few minutes. Maybe some ice...all this really isn't necessary."

Jack leaned down to whisper near his ear. "Yes it is," he said. "We need to take care of this pain and get you under observation. And if you endanger yourself by trying to pull stupid shit while he's gone, John is going to be completely pissed when he does get here."

Jack padded the splint with gauze, and as gently as he could, lifted it into place around Rodney's arm. Even with the drug in his system, it hurt. Rodney cursed. Loudly and continuously. Jack had been expecting that, though, and his hands never once hesitated or jerked. When it was done--finally--Rodney was in tears again and Jack...was thinking about crying himself. He held on to Rodney's good hand and whispered, "Breathe, just breathe. This is good, this is good."

Compared to splinting, packing the arm in ice and lifting Rodney onto the stretcher was a piece of cake. Getting Jack into the back of the ambulance was harder. There was no room for the chair, and no good place for an extra person to sit. Jack wound up perched on a narrow almost-bench clinging to the handle of something--he wasn't sure what--so he wouldn't slide off onto the floor. "Rodney," he said firmly, "Look right here. My eyes. This is the easy part, right? We can do this."

Rodney's eyes weren't focusing. That was the drug. But his face was turned in the right direction, so Jack counted it as a win.

"Do we run the siren?" one of the paramedics asked.

"No," God, no. Speed wasn't nearly as important as comfort.

"I want to call John," Rodney said, trying to keep his voice even.

"He'll have left the hotel by now. Rodney. Keep your eyes on me, all right? John is coming. You'll be all right."

"He's in Florida. That damn coliseum. Always that damn coliseum...."

"I know," Jack said helplessly.

The trip was no worse than Jack would have expected. The Emergency Room was in Rodney's usual hospital, and Rodney wasn't the only sentinel they treated. That was an advantage of sorts. Or at least not another strike against them.

They didn't have to wait for a doctor, although the brief intake was almost surreal. When Jack was being seen himself, medical personal often asked the same question repeatedly or didn't take the answers he gave at face value. Speaking to a doctor as a guide, though, was a completely different experience, one Jack had forgotten during the long years since he last advocated for a sentinel. The doctor listened very attentively, accepted Jack's evaluation of the situation without complaint, and followed Jack's recommendations.

The first thing, of course, was to x-ray the arm, now, before the pain meds wore off. There was no waiting for this either; a tech brought in a portable x-ray machine. The second thing--while waiting for the pictures to process--was to start another IV and see if they could ward off distributive shock. Then Jack took out the ring binder, and he and the doctor tried to work out a plan which--they hoped--would keep Rodney in the narrow space where the pain was bearable but he wasn't in danger of overdose.

Not fast enough. The drug wore off more quickly than Jack had expected and almost all at once. Jack, careful of the IV line, took Rodney's cold hand between both of his and tried to talk to him. Rodney kept asking what time it was. Of course, what he really wanted to know was how much longer before John came.

Jack tried to keep things low-key. His voice certain. His heart rate down. Eye contact. It had been a long time since Jack had practiced as a guide--and never, dear god, with anyone as fragile as Rodney McKay--but he remembered the rhythms.

Rodney clung.

The x-ray came back positive for a fracture in Rodney's wrist. The doctor wanted to set the arm--the more immobile, the less pain there would be--instead of just putting it in a brace, but Rodney would have to be under for that, and anyway, he'd never had a broken bone before. They'd have to test to see if his body would react to plaster or fiberglass.

"What time is it?"

"Not yet, Rodney."

The second painkiller was administered with the IV, so it hit more slowly. After a few minutes, Rodney slumped against the pillows and stilled. It was as much exhaustion as relief. Jack asked for a damp towel and wiped down his face. Rodney managed a small, ugly smile. "Heh. 'Jack I have this tiny favor. I'm sure you won't mind.'" It was a weak parody of John.

Jack tried to smile back. "Oh, yeah. I'm going to get him for this."

An orderly poked his head into the little curtained alcove they'd been given. "Dr. Kelso? There's a phone call for you."

Jack did smile then. "That will be John with his flight information. I'll be right back. You," he pointed at the orderly. "You watch him. I will be right back."

"How is he?"

"He's...stable." Not okay. Not nearly okay. "Where are you?"

A broken laugh, or maybe tears. "In jail. One of the lawyers found out I was leaving. I, um, something about contempt of court...."

"No--" Jack gasped.

"I need you to call Rodney's doctor. Not the one in Cascade, the one in Vermont. Beckett. Sam Beckett. He has friends in sentinel law. He'll help. I'll, I'll get there as quickly as I can. I'm sorry--"

Somehow, Jack said the right, reassuring things. Somehow, he found the number in Rodney's binder and made the call to the doctor. Somehow, he made himself go back to Rodney.

"How soon?" Rodney asked.

"Rodney, I'm sorry--"

"What? No--"

"John can't come. He's a witness in an ongoing trial, and the judge won't release him."

"You're lying," Rodney said loudly, anger rallying his strength. "John--"

"Will be here as soon as he can. But I don't know when that will be. You need to calm down. We still need to set the arm and get you admitted--"

"This is what you've been waiting for isn't it? A chance to get me out of the way?"

What? Jack's heart sank. Rodney was incoherent. They'd have to get him on oxygen and probably something to get his blood pressure up. Jack reached for the curtain, meaning to call for a doctor.

"Did you think you were hiding it? I know you want him for yourself. I can smell it on you. Well, this is your chance, isn't it? You won't even have to try very hard."

Oh. Not incoherence. Paranoia. Jack had never seen it this bad, but he had seen it before. He reached out--

Rodney's eyes widened. "Stay away from me."

"Brilliant. You've figured me out. If you die John will coming running to me. And, hey, compared to you, I'm actually a prize."

Predictably contentious, Rodney snapped, "He'd never forgive you!"

Jack nodded. "Right. He would never forgive me, and he would never get over it. Never. The sun rises and sets on you. So you had damn well better do what ever it takes not to die."

Rodney squeezed his eyes shut. "Oh, god, Jack. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. You've been so good to us--"

"Aw, hell." Jack heaved himself up onto the exam table and balanced him weight against Rodney's hip. "Easy. It's all right." He rubbed his palm gently up and down Rodney's chest. "Don't worry about it. It's all right."

"I'm so sorry. Please don't leave me. John would never forgive you if you left me."

"I won't leave you."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean--"

"I know. I won't leave you. But right now, you need to try to relax."

"I know," Rodney said meekly.

"All right. Now, the nurse is preparing a sample of the different materials, so we can tell what kind of cast you can tolerate. Plaster would be best, but--"

"Plaster is fine," Rodney whispered, closing his eyes. "When I was in school we didn't have CAD. We made all our models out of balsa wood or plaster. Lots of models. Drew all our plans by hand, too...."

"Oh," Jack said, feeling a little stupid. "Right."

An hour and a half later, the arm was in a drying cast and Rodney was in a private, sentinel-clean room upstairs. He was quiet, most of that exhaustion. At the moment he was refusing physical contact, but Jack didn't take that personally. If Jack had been in that much pain, he'd want to withdraw from his body and get some rest, too.

The problem was it might be withdrawing his attention from his body that sent him into shock. No one knew. The condition was rare and poorly understood. Something was clearly wrong. Even without drugs, even for a sentinel, the pain should be easing off by now. Rodney was still soaked with sweat from pain. It might be neurological. It might be an anxiety disorder.

Jack rubbed his face and disengaged himself from his worry. Calm. Present. Focused. It hadn't been so long since he'd practiced as a guide that he couldn't remember how. It was all just so damn ironic. Every year or two Rodney had been subpoenaed to Florida to testify in one lawsuit or another over a multi-million dollar stadium that had been built over a toxic waste dump, and that had been hard on him. Very stressful, and pointlessly so. Yes, Rodney had been the first person to see that there was a problem, but he was hardly an expert in environmental hazards. But he'd put a face on things. He'd been a witness to show to juries, instead of mountains of boring paper.

Finally, after spending a boatload of money on lawyers and getting reams of documentation from his doctor, Rodney had gotten a court order releasing him from involuntary testimony. Rodney had barely celebrated his freedom when the lawyers had decided to make do with John, who had been working with Rodney at the time, and told a wonderfully graphic story about just how sick the contamination had made his partner.

Four days. John had only been supposed to be gone four days. Even if they kept him as long as that, today was Tuesday. John would be home by Thursday night. That wasn't very long.

It was forever. It was forever for Rodney, trapped in pain and exhaustion and in terrible danger. It was forever for John, in a holding cell somewhere wondering if his partner was going to die alone.

A nurse came in, checked Rodney's blood pressure, asked if he would want dinner. "He likes jello," Jack said. "We can see if he'll get that down."

He ate three bites of the jello and shook his head. No more.

"It's good," Jack said, not knowing if it was.

"You can have it."

After the first interview with John and Rodney together, Jack had written in his field notes, "completely spoiled." And yes, he was. He was also still alive, which, given his really amazing physiological problems, counted as a miracle. Jack looked at the jello and wondered what to do. "I will," he threatened at last.

Rodney only closed his eyes and nodded. Jack ate the jello. Cherry. He was sorry almost at once: he hadn't eaten since lunch and wouldn't get to eat again any time soon, and now his stomach was almost painfully awake. He considered the possibility of getting something sent up from the cafeteria, but he didn't want to complicate Rodney's life with the smell of food. Tomorrow, when Rodney made a try at breakfast, Jack would get something and see if dining solidarity got them anywhere.

Jack set the plastic cup aside.

"How long until they can give me something else?" Rodney asked. Not food.

Jack checked his watch. "A while."

"A long while?" Rodney asked irritably.

"Your time sense is shot, Rodney. It won't help you to know," Jack said gently.

"Will you just answer the damn question?"

"About two hours."

Rodney looked almost betrayed for a moment. Then he turned his face away.

Jack rubbed his face. "Rodney, is there anything you need that I can do?"

In answer, Rodney reached out with the hand that wasn't in a cast. Jack caught it, careful of the IV line. Rodney's hand was startlingly cold. Jack chafed it gently, unsure how much contact Rodney needed just then. Well, no. What he really needed was John.

"It's not John's fault," Rodney said suddenly. "I know that. You, um, you need to tell him for me. That I knew that."

Oh. Fuck. The adrenalin rush was like being struck by a bolt of lightening. "Rodney. You'll tell him yourself."

"I can't do it."

Jack hesitated for a moment, weighing the effectiveness of a don't-you-dare-quit lecture against heartfelt begging, and into that hesitation, Rodney whispered, "I feel funny."

Jack's fingers slid against Rodney's wrist. He had to lighten his grip to even find the pulse, it was such a weak flutter against his fingertips. Shock. Rodney's dropping temperature should have been warning enough, but no, damnit, he hadn't been paying attention to the right things. Jack pressed the call button, and then palmed Rodney's face, forcing him to face him. "You're not dying, but you are crashing. We knew this was likely. It will probably happen several times over the next few days. If we handle this one well, the other times will be easier. I want you to breathe with me. Slow. Come on."

The nurse came in. Jack didn't look away from his charge, only thrust a post-it into her hand. "Get the doctor," he said. He'd carefully written out John's choice and dosage of vasopressor and had been holding it ready. They had to get Rodney's blood pressure up before his organs started to feel a lack of oxygen.

Rodney shuddered. "You don't understand--"

"That doesn't matter. I know what to do."

The doctor came in. A different doctor than before, naturally. He had questions. Jack told him to shut up and order the damn medication. He did, but then he insisted on examining Rodney. Probably it wasn't malicious, although Rodney flinched at the strange touch. He ordered nasal cannula, which Jack wouldn't have done while Rodney was alert enough for any kind of breath control. He stayed the twenty minutes it took for Rodney's blood pressure to even out at something close to normal, then checked the order for the next painkiller and left them alone.

Rodney fell asleep. Or at least close enough to sleep that Jack wouldn't get picky. His head drifted to the side and he drooled a little. The next time a nurse came in to check them, Jack waved her away. He managed a trip to the bathroom and a phone call to his department chair. He was going to miss class tomorrow.

Rodney was awake when he got back. Just in time for the next pain med in the rotation. This one was a mild narcotic, so the nurse attached a pulse lead to Rodney's finger. They would regulate the dosage by Rodney's reaction to it. Hopefully, he wouldn't metabolize it so fast it did practically nothing. Hopefully, he wouldn't have a surprise uptake distortion response and have to be treated for overdose.

They got extraordinarily lucky. The next three hours were golden. Rodney slept almost peacefully, his heart a steady 73, his hands warm and dry. His color was hard to judge in the dim room, but Jack thought he looked a little better.

It wore off too soon, of course. Rodney woke whimpering. The whimper turned into weeping as he tried to move and found himself jolted by what must have been horrible pain.

Jack worked on Rodney's pressure points, trying to bring a little relief. It didn't work very well. He was tender all over and found the pressure of Jack's fingers uncomfortable. In the end, Jack got Rodney talking about building materials; brick and stone and steel and glass. And wood. And tile. It was boring, but precise and detailed: perfect for focusing Rodney's attention away from the broken bone. Eventually, Rodney talked himself back to sleep. A frowning, unpleasant sleep, but something.

Jack tried to doze, one hand still wrapped around Rodney's wrist. Tomorrow would be no better than today had been.

A sneakered footstep in the hall made him jerk back to alertness. Jack glanced at his watch and turned to wave the nurse away. Instead he saw a silhouette of a tall man in the doorway. He saw jeans and a leather jacket and thought, John. But no. This man was broader, his hair was a little longer.

He entered the room and leaned down to whisper, "Dr. Kelso, I'm Sam Beckett."

Jack stiffened. "No," he said. "You're not. Dr. Beckett is in Vermont." Though he was unarmed, the floor wasn't empty. Help would come if he yelled. Moreover, Jack was strong, and this stranger was within easy grabbing distance. "If you touch him, I'll kill you."

Gratifyingly--also surprisingly--the man took a hasty step back, away from Rodney. He pulled out his wallet and held up a laminated card. "No, really. See?"

"No. I'm not a sentinel." The room was too dark for reading.

The man smiled slightly. "I am. I'm also Rodney's doctor. That binder on the table--I filled in a lot of it. Have you seen the section marked 'shortcuts?' It's just lists of dates and numbers, about five pages worth--"

The icy claw gripping Jack's heart relaxed. "Right," he said. "Oh." He should say something else. How did you get here? would be clever. Or even, What, you just dropped everything and came? But he only stared silently as Dr. Beckett retrieved Rodney's chart and looked over what they'd done so far.

When he finished with the chart, he sat gently on the bed and laid a hand on Rodney's breastbone. Rodney stirred weakly, but subsided almost at once. A conventional examination looked nothing like one given by a very good sentinel doctor. It involved no instruments, no change of position, no aggressive hands everywhere. Doctor Beckett was completely still, completely patient. The exam didn't last very long--at least Jack didn't think so. He faded out a bit, entranced by the stillness. He couldn't get past his bemusement at the idea of a world famous sentinel physician appearing without warning in Rodney's hospital room.

When the doctor finally rose gracefully, he motioned Jack to follow him out into the corridor. Jack blinked in the light and took a good look.

The doctor was looking back. He had light hair and a slightly-familiar face and intelligent eyes that missed nothing. "What's your opinion?" Jack asked him.

"He's doing better than either John or I hoped," Beckett answered thoughtfully. "He's responding very well to the medication. I don't have to tell you, though, that the next week is going to be precarious."

Jack nodded. "What do you recommend?"

"I want to change his IV to electrolytes and rotate the pain medication and sedatives on a shorter cycle."

"I've read your work," Jack protested mildly. "You don't believe in sedatives."

"Most of my patients aren't Rodney McKay." He paused. "Dr. Kelso, I'm not the guide of record here. You need to make this decision."

Jack nodded tightly. Beckett took a small pad from his pocket, wrote down his order, and held it out for Jack to sign. Beckett turned to meet another man coming down the hall and held out the square of paper. "Al, this is Dr. Kelso. Dr. Kelso, my guide Al Calavicci. Al, take this to Dr. Feldman and get his signature added."

Calavicci glanced at the paper and winced. "That bad?"

"No worse than we expected." He looked after his retreating guide for a moment and then turned to Jack. "I assume you don't have your car here. No? Just as well, you probably shouldn't be driving anyway. When Al gets back, I'm going to ask him to give you a ride home so you can get a few hours' sleep. "

Jack blinked. "Thank you. That's--kind. But, no."

Dr. Beckett frowned and leaned down so that he was speaking directly into Jack's left ear. "You're exhausted. Your heart rate is approaching one-hundred. I smell cortisol and catecholamines." Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Beckett didn't give him an opening. "Tomorrow--well, later today, actually--if Rodney isn't kept calm, he's going to fight the drugs, and if he succeeds, he will probably go into shock and die. He doesn't like me, and he doesn't trust me, which means you are going to have to be the one keeping him from sabotaging his body."

Jack gave in to the logic of it. And to the way his stomach sank at even the thought of tomorrow, another day of Rodney terrified and contentious and occasionally abusive. And another day after that. Unless the worst of all happened and he died--

Beckett dropped a casual, light hand on Jack's shoulder. "If you leave now, you can get three hours sleep and still have time for a shower."

***

"Hi, nice to meet you, call me Al," had a rental car parked in the North Deck. He was thoughtful enough not to try to make conversation on the way. Once in the car, though, Jack's curiosity overrode his manners (his exhaustion might have had something to do with that) and he broke the silence to ask, "How did John--is Dr. Beckett here because of professional curiosity? Even Rodney doesn't make enough to be able to afford--that is--?"

Al considered Jack for a moment and said, "Sam and Johnny are old friends. Johnny did his practicum at the hospital in St. Johnsbury."

"Oh," Jack said. Although he had known who Rodney's doctor was, John had never mentioned such powerful connections. "John was one of his students."

"No. Sam does medical consulting. He doesn't supervise guides. It wasn't inappropriate."

It took Jack a moment to understand. It wasn't inappropriate. They'd been involved. And still close enough that Beckett would fly all the way across the country to save John's current partner. Jack felt a little numb at that. "It was good of him to come. Both of you."

"Well, if we get lucky, it'll be a very short trip."

Jack gaped openly, although--surely Al hadn't meant to imply that he hoped Rodney would get it over with quickly and just die.

Al shook his head. "We've got a thing going with lawyers. Not just John's--the American Sentinel's Union isn't good for much these days but public services announcements, but they do have a small legal staff. And the Association of American Professional Guides is making a huge stink. It'll be on all the big morning news shows--innocent sentinel dying because heartless judge refuses to release his guide from testifying in a high-dollar court case. It's got everything; pathos, greed, messy medical details....With any luck, John will be on a plane headed home by lunch time."

"My god," Jack whispered, awed. "That's...." Brilliant. Wonderful. Just.

"Ain't it though? What a kick in the pants. By the time we're done, that judge will be sorry he ever heard of John Sheppard."

***

Jack woke up reaching for his gun, started by a blaring noise that it took him several seconds to recognize as his own alarm clock. He turned it off and pushed up to sitting. He was stiff and exhausted, but there was no time for exercises or more sleep.

When he came out of the shower he found that his houseguest (watchdog? Chauffer?) was in the kitchen making sandwiches. Jack swallowed his surprise and told himself that his training was still in place and he still had a healthy amount of paranoia, but if he was willing to trust Rodney's life to these people he might as well trust his own. He couldn't keep up that little lie, though. He took the cup of coffee Al offered him and admitted to himself that he hadn't paid any attention to the man who'd come home with him because he hadn't had the strength to spare. He might as well own up to that. Supporting Rodney was going to take everything Jack had, and if he was going to do a good job of it, he couldn't afford any pride.

"I assume you like tuna--it's from your cabinet." Al held out a sandwich.

Jack tore into it with very little regard for manners. As he swallowed the third fishy bite, a memory leapt to the front of his mind. "Rodney has a kitten."

Al laughed. "You're kidding. Rodney? Well, well, well. We probably ought to check on it. Is there anything else you need to do here before we go?"

There wasn't. That early in the morning, there wasn't much traffic, and they arrived at John and Rodney's in less than fifteen minutes. The kitten started vocally criticizing as soon as it heard Jack's spare key in the door and continued while Al fished tiny poops out of the litterbox and Jack refilled the bowl. "Demanding little thing," Al said, patting its head and getting his hand snapped at for his trouble. "What's his name?"

"I. M. Pei. Some famous architect, don't ask."

"I'm not asking." He patted the cat once more and hurried out the door. They made it to the hospital by six-thirty.

Rodney was on the phone, his eyes closed tightly, his answers quiet and inarticulate. Jack shot a look at Dr. Beckett, sitting quietly in the corner reading. "John," he mouthed, and motioned them to be quiet. Abruptly, Rodney exhaled a sharp curse and slammed the phone into the cradle. "They cut us off!" he said bitterly.

"The lawyers have gotten us fifteen minutes every two hours," Dr. Beckett explained, rising to take the phone and set it back on the table.

"What is the matter with these people?" Rodney growled, building up to a rant. "I have to say, I'm not too optimistic about the current strategy. This judge is an arrogant, power-hungry, controlling, self-serving bastard. Pushing people like that only makes them dig in harder. I know." Hoping to distract him with a less destructive anger, Jack wheeled into his field of vision and offered a hand. He expected Rodney to respond with a diatribe against temporary guides who ran out on their charges, but instead he seized the hand and held on tightly. "He says I have to do whatever you tell me," he said.

"That's...a good idea," Jack answered, squeezing back. "How are you doing?"

"I don't like this sedative. It's giving me a headache."

Without looking up from his book, Dr. Beckett called, "Also, you may have noticed that it's not very sedating."

Rodney ignored that. Instead he looked at Jack appealingly and said, "I'd really like to sit up."

Before Jack could answer, Dr. Beckett said, "No. You may not sit up. Your vital signs are right where I want them with you lying down. And don't try to get around me by appealing to him."

"Well, that should give you a warm fuzzy," Rodney said snidely to Jack. "You've been appointed the good cop." He opened his mouth to say something else, but broke off and pulled Jack's hand up to his face. "I forgot the kitten." He breathed in deeply. "Oh, god. I'm...a self-centered bastard. The kitten. He must be so lonely."

Whatever this sedative was, Jack was taking it off the list. Rodney was getting progressively more manic. True, his color was good, and he wasn't weeping with pain, but he didn't sound at all like himself, either, and that set off warning bells in Jack's mind. "Don't worry. It's fine. When John gets here, I'll take it home with me for a few days."

"Not it, he," Rodney corrected. "But thank you." He frowned. "Um...are you sure...I mean, can you take care of a kitten?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Well, it's hard to say. I'm pretty helpless, after all. Crippled. And not too intelligent to begin with."

"I didn't mean it like that--"

"On the other hand, I got you to and out of the emergency room alive. One small cat in my own house can't be much more difficult."

In a small voice, Rodney said, "You're laughing at me."

Jack relented. "A little. It's all right--"

"It's not my fault. I'm high for pity's sake."

That was a fairly accurate description, actually. "I know. I'm not offended--"

Rodney started to cry. Cursing inwardly, Jack heaved himself onto the hospital bed and checked his carotid pulse. Fast. Irregular. "Doctor--" he began, but Dr. Beckett was already out of his chair.

Rodney was nearly motionless, weeping silently. He gasped suddenly--a sharp, single breath, and returned to stillness. "Oh, boy. Atypical reaction. Al, hand me my kit."

Rodney gasped again, his frightened eyes going to Jack. "Easy," Jack said, kneading the uninjured hand. "The sedative is depressing more of your nervous system then we'd like. I want you to try breathing with me, Rodney. Keep your eyes on my face."

He was already having trouble focusing. If the broken bone in his arm wasn't enough stimulation to get his attention, Jack talking to him didn't have a chance.

"It's past the point where he can fight this one," the doctor said. He had his kit out and was measuring a tiny amount of powder into the plastic water cup. "Five milligrams of Adderal," he said. And it was a good choice: a long-acting stimulant that was (statistically speaking) very safe for sentinels. Of course, the current sedative was supposed to have been safe too.

Dr. Beckett lifted Rodney's head enough to get a couple of sips of the stimulant into him. Rodney fumbled the second swallow and it dribbled out of his mouth. Patiently, Beckett coaxed him into trying again. Jack kept his fingers on Rodney's pulse. Too slow.

Beckett retrieved the oxygen line that had been lain aside and reached above the bed to turn on the flow. He held the stream of air on Rodney's face with one hand and squeezed down on a pressure point under the armpit with the other. The pain from that site should have been enough to make Rodney yell. He only twitched his head.

Jack leaned close and whispered, "Rodney, come on. Wake up for me."

"Tired--" The response was very quiet and also slurred. Damn it.

"Rodney. Wake up. Right now, let's go." Jack pulled down the covers--as well as he could, while sitting on them--and exposed Rodney's warm body to the cold air.

"Hey--no--go 'way." Rodney pushed. He wasn't very strong, but Jack had to grab the bed in order to keep his balance. Beckett seized Rodney's head and forced him to swallow a little more of the stimulant.

"Is that going to work fast enough?" Jack asked.

"It should take effect in under a minute."

It did, and it didn't. Almost at once, Rodney started to breathe regularly, without anyone having to prod and annoy him into remembering to. He was in a reduced level of consciousness for about twenty more minutes, though, and Jack spent those twenty minutes clinging to his hand and watching his unfocused eyes. Damn it, Rodney, he thought. Don't make me tell John you're gone.

Eventually, Rodney sighed and made a soft grumbling noise. He pulled his hand away and slipped into something close to a normal sleep. Awkwardly, Jack climbed down into his chair and retreated back to the hall to collect himself.

After a moment, Beckett came out after him. He leaned against the wall and slid down to sit on the corridor floor. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"It wasn't your fault," Jack muttered, rubbing his hands together restlessly. "The statistical tables we use are completely inadequate."

"If we don't medicate him, the pain will kill him."

Al appeared, holding out Styrofoam cups of coffee. Jack took one and drank gratefully. "John's notes say there is no point in trying to hypnotize him."

Beckett shook his head. "He can't go under for John. And he wouldn't even let us try. No. Al, have you heard from Shirley?"

"Our motion's been refused, or whatever. The judge is digging his heels in. We're appealing to a higher court."

"Great," Beckett said. "Just great." He took a swig of his own coffee. "We've got to do something."

"You're listening?" Jack asked, because he didn't have any suggestions about what to do.

"He's stable. I want to try to control the pain with CAM when he comes out of it."

Jack shook his head. "Alternative therapies are more effective when used in the context of a trusting relationship."

"According to your first book, all therapies are more effective in the context of a trusting relationship."

Jack looked up. "My first book?"

Beckett nodded. "I liked it. John says your second book is nearly finished."

"The point being," Jack said, refusing to be distracted, "that there is not a lot you and I can do. We need John."

Rodney slept for almost an hour. It was the only respite they got that morning. Rodney submitted to acupuncture when he woke up--but not gracefully. He critiqued the doctor's performance during the whole procedure. Colorfully. The word "quack" came up more than once. When John made his call a little later, Rodney spent the permitted fifteen minutes alternating between unconvincing (but desperate) promises that he was all right and silent weeping.

Jack couldn't blame him. He knew the physical signs of pain. Rodney wasn't an easy patient, but he also wasn't lying when he said it hurt. When John's call was ended, Jack turned on the TV and tried to distract Rodney with a snack. He tried to pretend he expected it to work, but when Beckett murmured, "He smells like pain," Jack wasn't surprised.

They put it off for as long as they could, which wasn't very. "Please. I don't care if kills me, just give me a damn shot." So, Beckett got out his bag again and gave Rodney a small dose of a synthetic narcotic.

It wasn't even lunchtime yet, and already the day had gone on impossibly long. Dear god. Jack kept up a soft litany of useless encouragement until Rodney slipped under. Asleep not unconscious. Quietly, Jack eased back out of his personal space. He could watch without touching. If Rodney tolerated the drug well, they might have an hour or two of peace without any disasters.

"You should take a walk," Jack said. "You've been here for hours."

"I'm fine," Beckett said.

From his place by the door, Al said, "No, he's right. A few minutes of down time would be a good idea. Unless Shirley Schmidt gets her butt in gear, we've got another two days here at least."

Even world famous doctors gave in to their guides. Beckett relented. "Right. A walk, then. Can I bring you anything?"

"There's a pizza place across the street. We might even get Rodney to eat something."

Alone, Jack found himself counting the hours until John might reasonably arrive. Too many. He stretched silently, easing his tight muscles, and trying to settle his erratic thoughts. He wasn't the guide Rodney needed, but he was a good guide, and he was going to have to be focused and patient.

Rodney stirred. "Jack?"

"I'm right here," Jack said, moving into his field of vision.

Rodney sighed, considering Jack carefully. "I should thank you...." he said.

Jack took a deep breath and gathered together all the certainty and authority he could muster. "You're not going to die, Rodney."

"Oh, no. Not. What you're doing...." Rodney paused, fighting the fuzziness of the pain medication. "I appreciate what you're doing. I mean, it's not like you would miss me."

Oh, hell. Jack gently took Rodney's better hand. "I would miss you," he whispered. "Rodney. I would miss you. I would miss your spinach lasagna and your beef chow fun and your homemade cocoa. I would miss canasta every second Thursday. And movie night. And the way you criticize my housekeeping every time you come to my house." He laughed weakly. "You always tell me the truth. Rodney, I would miss you."

"You'd lie," Rodney whispered. "You'd say anything right now."

"Yes, I would," Jack said. "I would say anything."

Rodney closed his eyes.

Jack said, "Do you remember last year, after the talk you and John gave to the new batch of grad students, Dr. Buckner and Isobel took us out to dinner? And you and Isobel got into a weird technical argument about acoustics."

"I don't think I'll make the lecture this year, Jack."

"No, you'll be recovering longer than that. Maybe we can reschedule."

"John would be here. If he could."

Jack's throat closed. "Yes, he would," he managed. "He would be here. But he left you with me. And I am your friend, Rodney. You aren't alone."

Rodney turned his hand and clung to Jack. "This is endless," he whispered.

"No, it's not. John will come. The pain will fade. You'll get better. A couple of months from now...not even the memories will be very vivid."

"I remember everything."

"There are ways," Jack said. "We'll help you let this go. Not forget, but...get some distance. You'll get out of here and get back to your life and....Rodney, I promise. You're going to be fine."

Rodney took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "All right."

"Great," Jack whispered.

"The, um, the pain is kind of manageable right now. I'd like to go the bathroom...."

"Yeah, let's do that."

Using the toilet turned out to be--almost to Jack's surprise--no real problem, so Jack suggested Rodney clean up a little. The shower was out of the question, but Rodney sat cooperatively on the toilet lid while Jack helped him with a sponge bath. "They have nurses for this," Rodney protested at one point.

Jack snorted. "Really? And would you freak if some stranger touched you."

The hospital gown was cotton, not paper. That was one of the reasons this hospital got sentinels. There was an extra on a shelf in the bathroom. Jack helped Rodney dress and tied the strings. "How are you doing?"

Rodney started to answer, then snapped his mouth shut and looked away.

"What?" Jack asked gently.

"If I asked for a hug...." Rodney whispered.

It was awkward, even though the bathroom was roomy, but Jack got an arm around Rodney's shoulders. Rodney leaned into him, a little. It was a nice moment, but Jack couldn't give in to the temptation to extend it. He had to get Rodney back to bed before the pain stated to rise again. "Let's go," he said softly.

Beckett and his guide arrived shortly after Jack got Rodney lying down. "Hey?" he asked hopefully. "Is that pizza?"

"Feel like eating?"

It was a little awkward, eating pizza one-handed. Dr. Beckett wound up cutting Rodney's slice into little bites that Rodney picked up with his fingers. Jack shoveled his own pizza down. He hadn't realized how hungry he'd been and he didn't know how soon Rodney's 'good' period would end and everything would fall apart again.

When Rodney finished his lunch, Beckett lowered the bed and laid Rodney out flat again. Rodney, still mostly alert, stared up at the ceiling. It wasn't a good idea, leaving that mind unoccupied. "Do you have any grapeseed oil in that bag?" Jack asked.

Beckett dug out a small, brown bottle. "This will work better. It will be easier on his sensitivities." Jack sniffed it carefully, and then touched a drop to his tongue. Almost no taste: sweet almond oil.

"Did you just taste that?" Rodney asked, trying to see over his pillow. "You don't know what that is. You do know you're not a sentinel, right?"

"Right," Jack drawled. "I'd put something on your body that wasn't safe to eat." He had it figured out, now. He should have paid attention to his own research. Rodney's chances of surviving the next couple of days increased dramatically if he trusted the people who were taking care of him. If he was going to trust Jack, he'd have to believe--really believe--that Jack loved him.

Rodney--oh, he was prickly and abrasive and sometimes unkind, but he was also ruthlessly honest. To a career spy who had spent most of his adult life cocooned in lies, Rodney's honesty was...warming. Liberating. Jack could easily let himself love that.

Communicating that love, though--no. not so easy. Rodney wasn't prepared to believe. Words could be dismissed--had to be dismissed because they were untrustworthy. Jack had to tell him some other way.

He poured a little of the almond oil into his hand and let it warm.

"What are you doing?" Rodney asked.

"Trying to keep you calm," Jack answered, taking the free hand and gliding his palm over it.

It was a delicate operation, not really like massage at all. Though Rodney's muscles were tense and hard, Jack couldn't go digging, trying to press and squeeze out the tension and accumulated poisons with his hands. Even a little pressure could be agonizing if it hit while the drug was wearing off. And Rodney's body had had too much of pain already.

The knack was keeping the touch firm enough that it didn't tickle while stimulating only the skin, not the knotted muscle beneath. If Jack did it right, Rodney would--slowly, eventually--relax, but because of spreading pleasure, not because Jack forced him to.

Jack moved slowly. He avoided the IV port by a wide berth since the bruise would be sore, and spent twenty minutes gently stroking the arm and shoulder above. The hospital's dry air had left Rodney's skin thirsty and dry, especially now that it was mostly clean. Jack poured out more oil and spread it slowly, covering old ground until Rodney's arm was loose and the skin was warm and supple.

When he finished the section, he discovered--of course--that his hands were too slippery to wheel himself around the bed. Al was lousy at pretending not to find that sort of funny, but very quick to help, so it didn't interrupt the flow.

On the other side he had to be careful not to jar the arm because here was the broken bone. Rodney, heavy-lidded until this point, roused himself to watch suspiciously, but Jack started an unhurried, gentle stroke just above the cast and in a few minutes Rodney sighed and relaxed his guard.

Keeping with the theme of 'extremities first' (because this was already far more intimate than either Jack or Rodney would have chosen) he moved down to the feet next. A light touch, just enough to move the blood a little. Rodney sighed softly.

Jack tried not to think about the ugly irony--how rarely he'd given such gentleness to his own partners. How often he should have.

When he finished with the feet, he took a break to wash his hands. He'd been with sentinels too long to even think about touching body with drty hands. He came back quickly and resumed, sitting on the bed so he could reach. Rodney's breathing slowed and deepened. The time came and went for the current pain shot to fade, but Rodney was showing no signs of pain. Maybe his subconscious had slowed down his resistance to the drug. Maybe Jack had managed to make him feel safe enough to rally his control and settle the pain. Rodney was a talented sentinel with a powerful, intelligent mind. His problem wasn't that he lacked discipline or strength--he had plenty--just that his senses and mental processes needed so much more than *anyone* had. Rodney had survived for years before John. With a little help, he could manage the next few days.

Jack closed his eyes, listening with his hands, focusing on Rodney's warmth. Touching. Breathing. Keeping his attention on thoughts of trust and strength. Rodney would not believe words, but truth of body--Rodney would hear that.

When Jack finished with his legs, Rodney roused himself enough to turn over. He was awkward because of the cast, but not, apparently, in pain.

And then, as Jack undid the strings holding the gown closed and slid a hand over his bare shoulders, Rodney asked, "Shouldn't John have called by now?"

Jack glanced at his watch. It was about five minutes past time. "Soon," he said.

But Rodney had felt the change in tension. "What time is it? He's late, isn't he?" Rodney pushed at the covers and tried to turn, catching himself in his IV line. "Oh, my god, he's late."

Dr. Beckett, sitting quietly and reading in the light of the window, jumped up and crossed the room swiftly. "Rodney, don't start. I'm sure John will call as--"

"He wouldn't miss this. This is important. He--he wouldn't. Something's happened--"

"Rodney," Jack tried.

Rodney wasn't listening. "He's dead, isn't he? There are criminals in jails. Violent criminals. And the guards! They're as bad as the inmates--"

"I'm sure something happened," Beckett said loudly, "but not to John. He could be in transit. He could be testifying right now--which would be a good thing! The phone system could be down--"

Rodney had untangled himself from his line and was sitting up now, creeping back out of Jack's reach. He wasn't making good speed because his broken arm was clutched against his chest by his good arm. "I always wondered what I'd do without him. If he died. You know? But I'm not--I'm not going to have to find out, not for very long--"

"Oh, for pete's sake!" Jack hissed, leaning into Rodney's space. "If you do not shut up right now, when John does call I will tell him you turned into an idiot and you will never hear the end of it."

Rodney shuddered. "Do you--do you think--"

"He's fine! He's frantic right now, scared out of his mind that you're going to panic--"

"Right...right...." Rodney hadn't stopped shuddering. His breathing was still coming in funny, panicked stutters. Oh, fuck--

"Al, get me half a cc of point one phenylephrine. Rodney, I need you to lie down. Your blood pressure is dropping."

"Yeah. Possibly because I hurt."

"Rodney--Al, help me get him down."

Al handed Jack a loaded syringe without a needle, and helped his partner shift Rodney so he was lying flat.

"Open your mouth," Beckett said, retrieving the syringe. He squirted half the liquid onto Rodney's tongue.

Rodney jerked and swallowed convulsively. "Yuck. God--"

"Yeah, it's in sugar water. It's not that bad." Beckett reached for Rodney's shoulder, a medical reach, trying to gauge his vital signs. Rodney flinched away.

"Dizzy," Rodney whispered. A tear slid out and an unheeded into his ear.

The doctor gave him the rest of the dose. "Hand me the bag, Al. Let's look at our options for pain."

"Rodney, it's going to be all right," Jack said, nearly in tears himself. They had been close to *good.* Oh, John, he thought, I don't know what to do. I'm so sorry--

Rodney tried to shove the doctor away when he leaned in to give the pain injection. Jack caught the flailing hand and kissed it. "It's all right," he whispered. "It's all right. Just relax--"

The shot went in, and Rodney stilled. "Breathe with me, Rodney," Jack coaxed. "Nice and deep. Come on."

Ten minutes after they got him stable and resting, the phone rang. Al was closest. He picked up the handset, listened for a moment, and handed it to Rodney. "It's Johnny," he said.

"Hey," Rodney whispered. He listened for a moment. "Oh." And then, "Okay." Trembling a little, he handed the phone back.

Surprised, Al took it. "John?" he asked. He closed his eyes. "Okay," he said. "Yeah. Yeah." He set the phone down and scrubbed a weary hand across his eyes. "They've settled. Come to an agreement. Right then. It's over. No testimony, no nothing. He's got a police officer giving him a ride to the airport--his plane takes off in an hour."

The silence was so loud it made Jack's ears ring.

"It'll be at least eight hours," Beckett said.

"I'm going to get some coffee," Al said.

Numbly, Jack began to adjust Rodney's blankets. "'M sorry," Rodney whispered.

"Nah. It's okay. How's the pain?"

"I'm good."

"Can you get some rest?"

"Yeah...John's coming home?"

"Yeah," Jack said. He watched as Rodney's eyes fluttered closed.

Dr. Beckett slowly came around and laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Jack?" he asked softly. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said. No, he wasn't. "I...could use a hand climbing down, I think."

"Why don't you lie down here, next to Rodney for a while?" Jack found strong hands gently shifting him.

"I shouldn't--" Jack began.

"You have to. You're guiding him right now. You'll get no peace if you're not touching him. Here--" somehow, the IV line was flipped out of the way and a pillow flopped into place and Jack was lying beside Rodney, his forehead pressed against the shoulder of Rodney's unbroken arm. Nearly sleeping, Rodney stirred and sighed. "See? That's good. Just for a while. Let him know he's not alone."

When he heard Al coming back, the thought of coffee almost made Jack get up. Almost. Instead, he relaxed into the tiny slice of bed he'd been loaned and listened to Rodney's even breathing. Barring problems with the flight, John would be here by morning.

"This guy's good," Al whispered loudly. "You should talk to the director about offering him a job."

"We'd never lure him out of research. And, um, Al? He's awake."

"Oh. Well. I wasn't talking bad behind his back. How are you doing, Sam?"

"My head's killing me. What a day...."

From his watch, Jack guessed he got about twenty minutes of actual sleep before he woke to find Rodney mewling brokenly. It took them another ten minutes to understand that what was happening was that the pain medication had depressed Rodney's consciousness down into an ugly half dream, where apparently he was at the contaminated construction site in Tampa. Restless and anxious and nearly inarticulate, he called for John. He wept with fear. He complained that he couldn't breathe. He didn't seem to register their reassurances that he was safe and John was coming.

A nurse slipped in and told them that they had two other sentinels on the floor, and even with the white noise generators on, Rodney was freaking them out.

"Sam, have you got any ideas?" Jack asked.

"We've got to wait this out," he said. "It won't be long. Rodney has a fairly short metabolic cycle." Sighing he took Rodney's hand and very quietly started to sing. He had a sentinel's perfect pitch and a fair voice, and even though his choice of old show tunes struck Jack as kind of odd, the quiet singing did seem to calm Rodney down a little. After another ten minutes, that particular phase of the absorption passed, and Rodney quieted to a dismal passivity that...wasn't actually any more reassuring than the vocal confusion had been.

It was a long day. The sunlight crept across the grey tile floor, slowly marking time. Rodney rotated through periods of consciousness, sleep, and fuzzy, drugged intermediate states. Sometimes he was in pain. Usually, he was tired and afraid and uncomfortable. A few times he was manic, which wasn't reassuring either. Rodney weeping with pain wasn't any fun. Neither was Rodney in his 'cute-pun' phase or his dismally-speculating-on-death-and-generously-offering-Jack-John-once-Rodney-was-gone phase.

Dinner was hospital meatloaf and mac and cheese, which Rodney was alert enough to enjoy and Jack was tired enough not to care too much about. A cot was brought in and set up by the window. Beckett insisted that Jack use it first. "Sam, I'm all right--" he began, but the doctor lifted his left hand, a silent reminder of how simply a sentinel diagnostician could investigate that claim with a casual exam. Jack lifted an eyebrow. "That would be a little rude."

"It's also rude to mention that I can smell stress poisons in your sweat. Jack, you need to lie down and do some Serpent Breathing. Your circulation...isn't good."

"Oh, look, don't argue with him," Rodney groused without opening his eyes. "He's a doctor. The most obnoxious doctor on the face of the earth. Also, don't let him touch you. He uses it to read your mind."

On the narrow cot, Jack ran through an abbreviated series of stretches and then leaned back and composed himself for Serpent Breath. It was a fairly demanding discipline. The sharp, controlled, indrawn breath. The hiss of exhale. Precise and nearly inaudible, it required a lot of concentration to begin with, and drew attention further and further in. Most sentinels were never able to master the breathing pattern. Potentially, it offered a very broad control over metabolism; temperature, heart rate, digestion....In actuality, those moments of control were very difficult to achieve.

Jack's belly muscles weren't--quite--up to the sharp, powerful movements. He couldn't reach the moments of deep, white clarity and perfect control anymore. He did manage to over-oxygenate himself enough to get a little light headed.

When he finally let the pattern go, dropping back into easy, painless breaths, his fingertips were tingling and his muscles were relaxed. He left his eyes closed, thinking he might drift off for a few minutes sleep, but he could hear Rodney and Sam now. Rodney was talking about airplane disasters. All the ways John could die in a fiery crash.

Of course he was.

Jack sat up. "My turn, Sam," he said. "Take a break."

He talked Rodney through this latest manic period by criticizing the new Art, Architecture and Design building, which Rodney was personally kind of fond of.

"You're just being contentious," Jack prodded when Rodney began to flag. "I know you. You never really like anyone else's buildings."

"I resent that. I am perfectly capable of appreciating competence. Or even excellence. I'm not so petty and self-centered--that's what you think, isn't it? That I would really--"

Jack smiled a little and patted his hand. "No, Rodney. Not really. I'm pissing you off to keep you from panicking."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "You're a rotten guide."

"Yes, Rodney. If I were you, I'd just refuse to talk to me and go to sleep out of spite."

"Actually...I'm getting kind of tired."

Rodney slept off and on for the next couple of hours. On the cot, Sam slept, too. Al sat patiently in the chair.

Just before midnight Rodney and Sam woke at the same time. Sam got to his feet, and Rodney struggled to sit up, his eyes on the door. "Showtime," Al muttered, turning up the light a little.

It was then that Jack heard running feet in the hall. He pushed back from the bed, turning so he could see the door, too--

John looked like hell. He was still, sort of, wearing his suit. He'd lost the jacket and tie. There were pale rings under his arms and dark rings under his eyes. Rodney reached out with his good hand, and suddenly John was mostly in his lap, Rodney crushed in his arms. "Sweetheart. Oh. Are you all right?" John was in tears. Rodney was zoned: he'd been searching for John with every sense for days, and now that he was here, John filled his attention completely and overwhelmingly.

John cradled his partner's head gently and whispered broken encouragements. Rodney sagged, slowly giving up his tension until the zone consumed him and slid him into sleep.

The best sleep he'd had in a couple of days. John settled him more comfortably in his arms and turned to Sam. "How bad?" he asked. His face was still wet, and he had no free hand to wipe his eyes.

Sam held out Rodney's chart, tilting it into the light so John could see. "Aw, babe," John whispered. "So much...." He snuffled and petted Rodney's hair. "No, it's all right. It's good. You're okay."

Rodney snored a little. John started to lower him back down, but Rodney roused enough to fight the movement.

"He's not going to let you go," Sam said.

"That's fine. That's just fine. We'll just sleep here."

Sam and Al exchanged a look and retreated out the door. Jack looked around for anything he might be leaving behind, but no, all they had brought was Rodney's briefcase. Jack followed the others out the door.

Rubbing his neck tiredly, Sam asked, "Can you recommend a sentinel-safe hotel?"

"If you give me a ride home, I'll let you have my guest room. It's not glamorous, but its non-toxic."

"We'd be happy to drop you off--" Sam started, but Al cut in, "And very happy for the room." He was watching his partner with a concerned guide's eyes.

At home, Jack gave his guests first shot at the bathroom while he checked his phone messages and got out clean sheets. The guest room was pretty bare. Undecorated meant clean. Jack had too many friends who were sentinels not to have a safe place for them to visit.

He retreated to his bedroom until Sam and Al had cleared the bathroom and disappeared.

***

The next morning Jack slept in for an extra hour and got up at 7:30. Longer would have been nice, but he had a class at nine. Quietly, he showered and dressed. He laid out a bowl of apples tagged with a postit that said, 'organic' and a bag of raisin bread, tagged with a postit that said, 'grape juice in the fridge.' He also left out a key. The postit that went with it had a guestcode for the security system and instructions to leave the key with John if they weren't coming back later.

Halfway to the door, Jack heard the old hardwood floor creak under a footstep behind him. He turned back. It was Sam, dressed in loose underwear, face still creased from sleep. He crept closer. "You're going?" he whispered.

"Class," Jack said.

Sam nodded. His hair as fluffy and disordered from sleep and flopped in his eyes a little. "Listen, I--" he stopped. "I don't suppose I could get an autographed copy of your next book?"

"Only if you'll send me a reprint of your 1986 article on household toxins. The journal's pretty obscure. Nobody's got a copy of it...."

Sam smiled sunnily. "Done," he said.

Jack's class was on the second floor of the anthro building, but he had to make a stop on the third floor to pick up his notes and handouts, and he wound up being three minutes late.

"Guide Ethics" capped at twelve, and everyone was present and in a circle. It was only the second week, but they were well trained. Jack passed around his Xeroxes. "This is the standard medical proxy agreement. You'll notice it's very short, barely half a page. That's because it's very simple. Your signature, your partner's signature, a witnesses’ signature, and just like that you are responsible for someone else's life." He gave them a couple of minutes to look it over. Some of them had never seen it before.

This next part he had had a couple of years to refine. He singled out the youngest person in the room--easy, because it was a first-year who'd come up through the Rainer Anthropology undergrad program, so he'd been able to skip a couple of the introductory courses and was jumping right into Jack's ethics class--rolled up into his personal space and said softly, "Blair, isn't it?"

Looking impossibly young, the kid nodded.

"All right. Here is your situation. You are in the emergency room with your partner, who has a bullet in her right leg--never mind how--and she is bleeding heavily. She is also screaming with pain and attempting to fight the doctors. You are her guide, with her medical proxy. What do you do?"

'"You try to calm her down and treat the wound."

Jack nodded. "She's still screaming. She says the pain is unbearable. She is begging you to stop. What do you do?"

"I can remember being young enough to scream about inoculations," he answered. "You have to do what is necessary."

Jack nodded. "True. But you are not dealing with a child. You are dealing with a twenty-eight year old woman, who is able to evaluate the risks and benefits, and she says the pain is too great to bear."

The kid started to glance around for help, stopped himself, answered, "Is there a safe sedative?"

Jack smiled. "I don't know. Is there a safe sedative?"

"Presumably...I know her history."

"Twenty percent of disastrous reactions to sedatives occur without previous history of intolerance." Jack eased back and said to the class, "Hands, right now. Who continues treatment without sedation?" Almost half. "Sedation?" another three. "Restraints?" another two. Jack's target hadn't moved. "Well, Blair? What do you do?"

"Can I ask--?"

"You've waited too long. She's gone into shock--from the pain not the blood loss--and she's dead." And damn, these last few days must have really messed him up, because Jack usually wasn't quite this much of a bastard in class. He turned his back on the class and retreated to the desk at the front where he'd left his notes.

When the class was over and the others filed out, Blair took his time gathering his things and came up to Jack just as the last of the others filed out. "Professor Kelso, can I ask--What happened to her?"

Jack sighed and busied himself stuffing notes and overheads and left-over handouts into his briefcase. "I ordered sedation," he said. "She had a bad reaction and went into convulsions. She lived."

The kid gulped and fled.

***

He was scheduled to hold office hours until noon, but he slipped out at 11:30 and made a quick trip to John and Rodney's to feed that kitten (now very lonely and indignant) and pick up Rodney's own bathrobe and a change of clothes for John. On the way to the hospital stopped and bought sandwiches and nice bottled water at the deli.

Rodney was asleep when Jack, loaded down the overnight bag and lunch, got to the room. John held a finger to his lips and slipped to the doorway. He smiled gratefully at the canvas bag Jack offered and slid it into the room, out of the way. Then he sat down on the floor, his back against the door jam and whispered, "Thanks!"

Jack passed John the bag of sandwiches so he could take his pick, and leaned sideways to look in on Rodney. From the hallway, he could only see part of Rodney's left arm and his feet. He realized abruptly what that horrible emptiness that had been plaguing him all day was. He'd spent more than fifteen years as a guide in the field. Working for the Company had been...isolating and disheartening, but it hadn't been lonely. Not being a guide. If anything, there'd been too little privacy--always on call, always beside someone who could smell your mood, always overheard if your partner was anywhere in the same building. It hadn't been lonely.

Jack had lost so much in the last six or seven years. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed having a partner. He hadn't noticed the ache of empty arms until they'd been filled again so briefly. Jack swallowed hard and asked softly. "How is he?"

John smiled and glanced at the bed. "Better. Sam came by this morning and put him on micro doses of Ritalin."

"That's a stimulant," Jack answered worriedly.

"Oh. Yeah. But not for his blood pressure. To help his brain cope with the pain. Sam was afraid to try it before, Rodney was so overwhelmed with anxiety the last thing he needed to be was more alert. But he's off the pain meds right now and sleeping normally. We may have found a solution for this."

Jack tried not to frown doubtfully. Drugs never worked out in the long term for sentinels. What little good Rodney was getting from this latest treatment was only possible because he had his own guide. They'd known all along that what Rodney had really needed was John. "So assuming he can keep taking it...?" Assuming he didn't very quickly acclimate (and it stopped working) or develop a sensitivity (and an allergy) and could take it for more than a few days.

"If he stays stable over the weekend, I'll be able to take him home early next week."

"That's fantastic." Home. Going home. A couple of times over the last few days, Jack hadn't been sure Rodney would make it at all.

Apparently, John was thinking that, too. "I can't begin to thank you," he said hoarsely, setting the sandwich he'd unwrapped in his lap. "This isn't a debt I can ever repay--"

"It's not a debt," Jack replied swiftly. "He's my friend, too."

"Rodney says...he was mean. Really mean. Although he won't tell me what he said to you."

Jack forced himself to smile. "John, that can't be a surprise. His temperament isn't exactly a secret. Rodney can be a little...sharp."

John's face slowly flushed. He closed his eyes. Suddenly Jack realized that while Rodney had not told him what he'd said that was so mean, John had guessed. "There are some things no one should ever have to hear. You didn't deserve that."

Jack gave up on the smile. "I know what it's like to be afraid and helpless and surrounded by people who don't care a whole lot and might kill you by accident. Tell him I understand. And he and I are okay."

John composed himself and began to eat the sandwich with a single-minded intensity that said he was trying to pretend the preceding conversation hadn't happened because he didn't know how else to be kind. "Rodney likes hospital food," he said around a mouthful. "I think he finds it reassuringly non-threatening."

Jack looked at his own lunch. "Whereas you are used to his cooking."

"Yeah." John winced. "That's his chopping hand. And his drawing hand. And, you know, typing. Shit. I don't think that's occurred to him yet. Six weeks in a cast...."

"Heh. He's going to be a complete pain in the ass. See?" Jack said, forcing a smile. "And here I was envying you, working in the field."

John laughed, quickly stifling the noise and glancing at Rodney. The noise hadn't woken him. "Wait--are you serious?"

Jack shrugged. "Those who can, do. Those who can't...."

"Get very famous doing groundbreaking research." He frowned. "Jack--"

Briskly, Jack shoved his unfinished sandwich back into the bag and pushed back. "I've got to run. Faculty meeting at three. Call me later when Rodney's awake and let me know what you need. I can bring it by tomorrow on the way in."

John didn't try to stop him. He couldn't raise his voice, not with Rodney sleeping, and he wouldn't leave the hospital room completely. That would work out. John would call later. Jack would come back tomorrow, ready to play the supportive friend. He'd take care of that damn kitten. Everything would be fine.


End file.
